

Ask HN: What to do if co-founders are distracted by other business ventures? - laundrysheet

I&#x27;m the technical co-founder of a startup with two of my close friends. We&#x27;ve been in business for more than a year and are profitable. However, both of my co-founders are constantly getting involved with other business ventures while I put in alot of work into the startup. I feel they aren&#x27;t as completely committed as I am and it&#x27;s definitely hurting our growth. Lately it&#x27;s been very demotivating for me knowing that while I work on our startup, they are researching&#x2F;getting involved with other startup ideas. However, I don&#x27;t want to completely abandon the startup cause it has a lot of potential and is still growing. But I can&#x27;t continue like this since it makes me frustrated and stressed out.<p>Does anyone have experience with this type of situation? How do you guys recommend I approach this?
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ScottBurson
Ouch -- tough problem.

I'm no expert on these situations, but here's my take. I think you need to
give them an ultimatum. Either they make you CEO -- giving you the power to
cut their pay or even fire them -- or you'll quit.

I know you don't really want to quit. A profitable bootstrap (as I gather this
is) is a rare enough thing that you don't want to abandon it. But you also
don't want to be in a situation where your two co-founders are freeloading off
your work -- that could get really old really fast. Maybe you can't get their
equity back (I'm guessing you didn't set up a vesting schedule for founders'
stock), but you could at least stop them from being a drain on the company's
cash flow without giving much back.

