

Ask HN: Friend turned Co-founder dilemma - cofounderdil

Dear HN<p>2.5 years ago a good pilot friend of mine came to me with an idea for a business in the aviation industry. We founded a company together 50/50. Now 2.5 years later we have around 5000$ per month in revenue and 7 customers.<p>He is taking care of sales and customer support.
I'm taking care of development.<p>The problem is that I don't consider him good enough and feel that I could do a better job.<p>His communication skills are bad, lots of spelling errors, badly formatted e-mails and subpar english skills.
This is a problem since most of our customers are international.
No technical skills. He has a hard time setting up his mail client.
Lack of focus when working.
Poor sales skills.<p>The trouble is that when we started the company, I was very forgiving when he did stupid things, I just helped him.
It has become very frustrating that he needs so much help.
Not because he isn't working hard, often he works more hours than me.
Lately I've started not to care about his bad work, and I tell him just to send e-mails, without me looking trough them.<p>I've tried multiple things to help the situation.<p>1. I told him that I was tired of having a business with him and that I wanted to buy him out or he could buy me out.
He didn't want me to buy him out and he couldn't find another technical founder. So he didn't want to buy me out either.
I gave him a pretty good deal the person buying the other out, should over the next 12 months give 2500$ to the other.<p>2. We found an investor/co-founder, who should help him with sales. Unfortunately it didn't work out.<p>3. Obviously tried to be his training wheels, but without success.<p>4. Given him books about sales/communication, he hasn't read them.<p>I feel like we could get 1-2 customers extra per month with the right effort.
What would you do in my situation? 
Quit?
Try even harder to persuade him to being bought out or buying me out?<p>Feel free to ask for any additional questions.
======
gee_totes
Maybe it would be worthwhile to ask him if he wants to be a silent partner? Or
send him off on an R&D mission that is completely up his interest area?

Also, what is your aviation startup? My best friend has a ton of knowledge
about the commercial aviation industry and is always looking for interesting
things to do, if you're looking for people to help out. You can find contact
info for me via links on my profile.

~~~
cofounderdil
I don't think I can convince him about being a silent partner, he takes a lot
of pride in being an entrepreneur, also I could really use a cofounder who
compliments my skill set, not just a silent partner. I like the idea about
sending him of on an R&D mission :) however i can't think of any, that would
benefit the company.

I'll send you a PM

------
cofounderdil
I would like to add, that when we started he was a big help, he had contacts
to our first 3 national customers and also had some domain knowledge.

------
thetrumanshow
I assume this isn't a full-time endeavor. If not, that 5K a month sure sounds
like enough to get another smart person involved.

~~~
cofounderdil
I've tried to convince him to hire a salesperson, but unsuccessfully. We have
to agree because of the 50/50 partnership.

