My tech cofounder drops out. I just receive a 10K investment. What do I do? - IsraCV
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brudgers
Explain the situation to your investors, offer to return the money, build
another company while staying in touch with your investors.

Yes, it kind of sucks. $10k is not enough money to waste goodwill on or
potentially voiding your reputation.

Good luck.

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IsraCV
I'm trying to avoid this. But lets see what happen. Thank you for your comment
:)

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brudgers
I know you're trying to avoid doing the slam dunk obvious right thing. There's
almost zero upside to what you want to do. Even if you're cofounder hadn't
left the odds are that your startup would fail. That's the nature of startups.

The $10k won't change that. Your cofounder leaving makes it even more likely
your startup will fail. And that means that should the startup fail, your
startup will have failed and you will have done the wrong thing.

On the other hand, if you disclose the status to the investor, the worst thing
that can happen is that you walk away from a troublesome project with a
potential future investor who sees you as a person of integrity. The best
thing that can happen is exactly the same as the best thing that can happen if
you don't disclose. And the odds of that best thing happening are improved
because you don't have to waste energy on a web of deceit and because you have
an ally who will talk well of you.

A person is only as good as their word.

~~~
ryanalam
"Even if you're cofounder hadn't left the odds are that your startup would
fail."

I think that's a shitty outlook. Of course your startup has odds of failing,
but if you quit on your idea because of this hiccup, your chance of failure is
100%. These things happen. Be 100% up front with your investor, tell him you
need some time to find a new co-founder, and then go find one. If the investor
can't stomach this challenge and wants his money back, all good - his money
wasn't worth the hassle of having an investor with a low risk tolerance. But
perhaps he's someone who either believes in you or your idea, and would want
you to persevere and get this thing off the ground, not jump ship at the first
sign of difficulty.

Your other options are to hire some freelancers/developers to help you take
your early stage prototype to a public-facing finish line. Or learn to code
yourself, that's always an option ;)

~~~
7Figures2Commas
> If the investor can't stomach this challenge and wants his money back, all
> good - his money wasn't worth the hassle of having an investor with a low
> risk tolerance. But perhaps he's someone who either believes in you or your
> idea, and would want you to persevere and get this thing off the ground, not
> jump ship at the first sign of difficulty.

That's not entirely fair. If the investor had been told there was a team in
place, and relied on this in making an investment decision, a co-founder
leaving is a material event that the OP has an ethical if not legal duty to
disclose. This is especially true since none of the money has apparently been
spent.

~~~
IsraCV
It was my mistake not to explain correctly the situation. The investor knows
the fact that the co-founder leaves and I hire a freelancer to continue with
the development, no matter this, he decide to invest.

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genystartup
Find another co-founder? what is his/her role in the project?

~~~
fsniper
Of course this is the obvious answer, but, the op already knows that. They are
asking because, they have some conundrum that they can't put heir finger on.
We need more information.

Why losing a co-founder is a problem? Only they have the technical ability?
Only they have the insight to the sector? The fund depends on their name? The
fund depends on the partnership? co-founder is irreplaceable in some way? Op
has time limits? Op lacks the technical/social abilities to replace partner?

~~~
IsraCV
I don't have the technical abilities, that's the only thing. Definitely the
co-founder is replaceable. I have just hire someone to continue the work and
see how things go before asking to be a co-founder and don't burn money on
salaries in this very early stage. What would be your recommendation for me?

~~~
fsniper
It's the talent finding question, we are all having and fighting right now. If
you watch HN carefully you would see that we have at least 4 - 5 talent
finding guidelines or startups popping up daily.

HN is a good place for looking for talent, but you need to give more
information about what you want to build. Also you need to create interest in
people because it's really an early stage venture with low funding.
Considering money is the first incentive you need luck, or you need to show
that you have the chance to become a unicorn.

Also you may try angel.co.

So good luck.

~~~
IsraCV
Thank you for your comment :)

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dylanhassinger
[http://odesk.com](http://odesk.com)

~~~
IsraCV
Thank you for the link! ;)

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ryanalam
cool idea! DMing you ;)

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IsraCV
Hi! @ryanalam, I read your tweet but you still didn't DMing me.

