
Ask HN: How do you handle a co-founder that misses all goals? - anonyfounder
Hi HN,<p>I&#x27;m working on a new startup as a technical co-founder with another technical co-founder that I&#x27;ve known since college (~ 10 years.) We&#x27;ve been friends ever since, and about a year ago we decided to start this project. We&#x27;ve been working on a first version the entire time, and just can&#x27;t seem to release. We broke the app up into manageable pieces, try to keep in constant contact (via email, Jabber, and for a while, an internal forum), and have very well-defined goals set up. I finished up my pieces (including a full test suite, etc.) months ago. He is still working on his piece, and says it&#x27;ll be done &quot;next week&quot; or &quot;just need to finish one more thing&quot;, but it never seems to happen. This has gone on for almost 4 months and we can&#x27;t seem to get to the first finish line.<p>We have had several heart to heart conversations about it, I offer help if he needs it, whatever it takes to get us to the next stage, but he always refuses, saying that &quot;he can handle it&quot; and &quot;not necessary, almost done this time.&quot;<p>I&#x27;ve looked at his code, and it does seem almost done, but it&#x27;s barely different from where it was 3-4 months ago. I feel like I&#x27;ve tried everything to be supportive, but am running into a wall. We set our launch date to around 3 months ago, and keep pushing the launch date (and missing it). I&#x27;ve asked if there are other things in his life taking time away from working on this, but he always says no, he is super gung-ho, but then he disappears during times we&#x27;ve designated for work to go off to the movies or play XBOX and misses half the work session.<p>I really want to make this work, because this guy is my good friend and I really like him aside from this issue, but I don&#x27;t know who I can ask - we don&#x27;t really have anyone else working with us right now except an occasional freelance designer.<p>What can I do, HN?
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tptacek
1\. You're probably not going to be successful without colocated founders.

2\. What makes you think the milestones you've set up are reasonable? Most
estimation in software development is fantastical.

3\. If you're done with your component and your partner is in the weeds, it's
not up for discussion whether you're going to pitch in on their component. The
company can't have you idling.

4\. People get demoralized easily. Your "cofounder" fits the description.
Maybe he bit off more than he can chew; maybe his milestones were much harder
to perform than yours. Maybe he just stumbled. Either way, it's not a problem
that goes away by itself; the company has to fix it. You should have been able
to spot it happening 3-4 months ago and fixed it then, but you weren't skilled
enough to do that.

What can you do? First, learn from the experience. Here you are, done with
your component, partner in the weeds, and, guess what? Moral superiority (not
that you necessarily have it) gets you nowhere. Problems happen. The more
problems you can foresee, the more you can discuss ahead of time how you'll
handle them. But discussed or not, you need to get out of your own head, stop
thinking about what you did get done versus what your partner didn't get done,
and figure out how the company can move forward.

Moving forward here, I think you have two choices: you can give up on this
particular partnership, or you can reassure your partner that everyone gets
lost in the weeds sometimes and then renegotiate who's doing what pieces for
the next month or so, and put things back together. Then, before your next
sprint or whatever, have a long conversation that accepts the fact that one or
the other of you aren't going to be successful at your personal piece of the
project, and figure out how you'll handle that.

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throwaway420
I think people are too quick to say "fire the cofounder" in these situations.
It's very easy for software development to take months longer than expected,
even when you're about 95% done. Finishing stuff and having some judgement
about when a product is ready is really, really hard.

The issue seems to be that he's telling you "just need to finish one more
thing" every time. Get a list of exactly what needs to be done in this kind of
format with estimated amount of time...

* Task a - estimate 5 hours * Task b - estimate 3 hours * Task c - estimate 15 hours * Task d - estimate 10 hours * Task e - estimate 5 hours

...and work methodically through the list.

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reeses
Your cofounder should be like your life partner in this situation. You should
not have let it get to this point without knowing what was going on. Fix it
now by leveraging your friendship to see how you can balance things out.

If nothing else, show that your priority is to the friend. If it turns out his
priority is not the same, well, lots of couples break up because one wanted
kids and the other did not.

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dctoedt
Assuming you're in the U.S.: If you don't have a written agreement otherwise,
then if you were to "fire" your co-founder, he might nonetheless remain a
joint owner of the intellectual property. (The result would be basically the
same if you previously formed a corporation or LLC but didn't provide for a
break-up in the governing documents.)

If that were the case, then (A) you'd likely have a hard time attracting
funding in the future, because your co-founder would still have an ownership
claim; (B) your co-founder might well be able to start -- or license someone
else to start -- a competing business; (C) your co-founder might be entitled
to claim a share of the future profits of the business.

So, if you're going to go your separate ways, you might consider offering to
buy out your co-founder, either in cash or for some (capped) percentage
royalty on future revenues.

Food for thought.

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bdfh42
Fire your co-founder at the second failure - always - no regrets. You might
then remain friends - the alternative is not worth exploring (or living
through).

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squigs25
I would say it's time to get confrontational.

One thing that separates a start-up from a regular company is that you
_shouldn 't_ have normal office politics. You both (probably) have equalish
equity so the only things preventing you from confrontation are the social
norms and stigma against that.

At Paypal, people used to wrestle to settle arguments. I'm not saying that
physical dominance is the right way to get things done, but I do think there
should be a "no fear", open environment where people can be completely up
front without worrying about hurting/offending their peers.

It's ok to say, "look, we need to have a no-excuses deadline, and we need to
pull consecutive all-nighters to get it done."

It's also ok to spec out exactly what minimum requirements your product needs.

I can also say that I've been on teams where people weren't up front about
problems that they had with me. It led to an unhealthy dynamic, and things
didn't pan out.

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adventured
This is strictly an opinion of course, but it seems like your co-founder is
afraid to launch (and everything that can go with it, like failure). Sometimes
it's confused for perfectionism, but you can tell the difference by the lack
of progress / improvement. Fear is one of the most common impediments to
success, and people like to talk about it approximately as much as they might
erectile dysfunction. Once you launch a project, your life changes; the pre-
launch development stage is substantially different from the post-launch
stage; it places demands on your shoulders that you can't shirk off
(properly), it dictates a lot about your life. And there's no going back, it's
sink or swim.

Talk to him about the situation openly, lay your concerns on the table. Try to
get a drop dead date agreement, after which you take over the project.

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saiprashanth93
Maybe this post will make you realize you gotta do what you have to do so that
it doesn't become too late.

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richsin
So many partnerships die because you believe the other person is capable of
being responsible and disciplined. If he is having problems completing the
task, this will be an ongoing issue guaranteed.

Also this seems very one sided and it usually never is. You must allow for a
balance but at the same time hold people accountable. As throwaway420 said,
become methodical.

In the case I am wrong and you have been a good partner, you need to cut the
dead weight and find people who are as serious as you are. Whether it's this
project or a new one, don't get stuck in these situations - its poison.

Also, you have to know when to walk away, for the sake of the friendship and
your sanity. Get serious and stop being a friend, because he is slowing you
down and this will NOT end well.

1\. Have a meeting and let him know that you guys need to set a deadline for
hitting that first finish line. This must be a hard deadline, meaning either
he walks away from the project and you find someone else to take it up or you
scrap the project all together. This seems very harsh and I recommend you try
to word it positively, always hoping for it to be in the best interest of both
of you. Don't be too nice though, because you should be upset, he's wasting
your time.

2\. Stick to your deadline and do what you say you will do. This is a life
lesson. The only instance you should consider extending this deadline is if
you see serious traction and even then, you set a hard deadline again.
Traction is not an opportunity for you to go back to the way things were,
stick to what works.

3\. Start working on your backup plan. NOW. What will you do if this fails? If
you need to find another developer, who will it be? How will you wind this
down if it doesn't work out and still keep him as a friend? If you still
believe in the idea and he doesn't want to hand it over, is it worth losing a
friend over?

It's OK to be nice, but it's not OK to be taken advantage of. I was too nice
when I first started doing business and I would always take pride in that even
when I got screwed. Have no doubt, it may not be intentional, but this guy is
taking advantage of your niceness. Put your foot down because your dreams and
goals in life should never be in the hand of anyone other than your own. He
may be driven and ambitious, but not as much as you are.

With the right co founder, they will push you as much as you push them. There
is a momentum that a business needs in order to be successful, it is not an
on/off switch. Talent is no excuse for stagnation and I hope this all works
out for you.

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krmmalik
While I agree the best option is for them to part ways I dont agree the co-
founder should be fired. I've seen many situations like this with two sides to
the story and while i'm not criticising the OP he/she hasnt cited any of their
own short comings that could be contributing to this problem.

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davyjones
I am not trolling. I have been looking around to team up as a co-founder. If
interested and there is a match, maybe we can chug along forward.

