
ASK HN: How do you motivate a lazy co-founder? - vignesh343
Hi, I'm new to this board.<p>I have a question about motivation. I'm running a mobile start-up and we just moved into our new offices. We started working on our spare time putting in time whenever it was available. Now, my co-founder and I are dedicated full time to the business and we've hired a couple of interns.<p>The problem however is that while I show up daily at 9 AM, my co-founder (the engineer, I'm the business guy) shows up every morning in the PM. We've had several discussions about inappropriate this is and how he's degrading office morale (mine and the intern's) by showing up so late every day. He stays late hours to try and compensate this tardiness, but it's still really poor presentation and incredibly unprofessional.<p>I have no recourse because we split the venture 50/50 (no vesting). If I want to continue on the project without him, he can block it. I've tried buying him out and he insists he's committed and will not sell under any circumstance. My only recourse is to quit and block him from taking the idea and running with it. Neither of these are admirable outcomes and I'd rather run the business as far as it can go with a lazy co-founder than end it in such an ugly fashion.<p>What I really want is a decent fucking co-founder who can show up at 9 (or 10 AM if he absolutely needs an extra hour of sleep) and be a profesional. Does any one have an idea on how to motivate him to do this?<p>Thanks,
Vignesh
======
alttab
Change your standards (really).

In my experience with start ups, developers rarely come in early. Some of the
best developers I work with come in at lunch. This is because they are night
owls and work better at night.

 _Not understanding that pure-bread developers work differently is denying the
basis of your product._

It sounds like, on a personal level, that you want your co-founder (who is
technical) to be more like _you_. Well sorry, that's not going to happen. You
need to understand that you wanted to work with him in the first place because
of who he is and what he is capable of, not what time he gets up in the
morning.

As a little background, I am a developer. I _do_ however, wake up at 6:30, and
I'm at my desk at 7:50am. This is before any other developer (and more times
than not before anyone else has even shown up). I'm not like most developers,
this is my personal choice, and I understand that.

Demoralizing him and berating him will further his cause to be dissonant to
"business." This includes coming in later and later over time, not wearing
"professional" clothes, or being hard to work with.

My heart-felt advice is to apologize for being a _prick_ to someone so
important to your product, your business, and your success, and set a road map
for _increasing co-founder communication and understanding_. You chose him
because he was different. If he had the same skills as you, you wouldn't need
him.

So first apologize to yourself, forgive yourself for being close-minded. Then
apologize to him, and the interns. It takes a big person to be able to do
that. It won't be fun.

Then have a candid, non-confrontational conversation with him. Figure out
where the communication ended (I guarantee this is your issue). Remember,
_you're in this together._

If he doesn't come in early enough for calls or presentation, do it without
him. Ask him to give you the materials or knowledge you need to do it well.
Maybe do some of the things you think he should. Try to _help him do his job
better_ , which may not be looking professional, having sane work hours, etc.
If hes an engineer or developer, his job is probably _building the product_.

You may be surprised that the cool helpful guy you met is actually still
there.

~~~
acid_bath
EDIT: followup - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1469271>

Old post:

I think the OP should be thankful his dev doesn't walk. If I partnered up with
some biz guy who demanded I show up early for no other reason than appearance
I'd assume he's an empty suit and leave. (9am is early in this industry, I've
never had a job that demanded I show up before 10:00).

OP: You're a 2.5 man closet startup and you're asking your other half to be
less productive for the sake of appearance. Are you sure he's the one with the
problem?

All this talk of being "unprofessional" is a joke when it's two guys who just
scrounged up enough capital to rent a cheap office trying to impress a fucking
intern. Jesus Christ.

On second thought, I'm certain I'd bail if the OP was my "partner." The lack
of thought put into this, the fact that you've considered trying to oust him
instead of confronting him, the fact that you seem to lack the ability to look
at your company critically (again: 2 dudes and some interns == 9-5 IS NOT A
BIG DEAL) all shows a severe lack of biz sense or even common sense. You're
obviously insecure (cares too much about appearance to some teenagers), ill-
informed (does not understand developers or managing developers) and not
equipped for a leadership position (talking to HN instead of the one person in
the company who he should be talking to).

I hope the "partner" you're treating like an employee reads this thread and
bails. You reached out to a forum instead of talking to someone who's your
other half. I can't imagine how you'd run an actual company.

It sounds harsh but it's a harsh industry.

~~~
GrandMasterBirt
I've been in an interview where they bluntly said "8:30am - 6:00pm are the
required hours minimum".

~~~
GFischer
But they were upfront about that.

I "work" from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m, but in fact I'm very unproductive,
especially in the morning, and I get only a few blocks of 2-3 hrs where I am
productive (maybe 5 out of the 10 hours total in a good day).

I was a lot more productive with other time arrangements (and space, I'm in an
open office with 7 other developers, which kills my chances of being "in the
zone" unless I wear headphones).

------
generalk
Let's try an experiment: \---

Hi, I'm new to this board.

I have a question about motivation. I'm running a mobile start-up and we just
moved into our new offices. We started working on our spare time putting in
time whenever it was available. Now, my co-founder and I are dedicated full
time to the business and we've hired a couple of interns.

The problem however is that while I consistently develop our product, my co-
founder (the business guy, I'm the engineer) shows up every morning at 9 AM
sharp, and demands I do the same. We've had several discussions about
"inappropriate" this is and how I'm "degrading office morale" (mine and the
intern's) by showing up "so late" every day. We're supposed to be partners,
but he continues to demand that I show up at 9 AM like he does, every day,
with no regard for my opinion or how well I'm building our product.

 _..._

What I really want is a decent fucking co-founde who understands that products
aren't build only between 9AM and 5PM, and who can be professional and
courteous during his conversations with me. Does any one have an idea on how
to motivate him to do this?

------
starkfist
Welcome to startupland. You're fucked if you think you're going to find a good
engineer that wants to work 9-5. "Compensate this tardiness" == LOL. Half the
point of a startup is avoiding that lifestyle. At any startup I've worked that
went anywhere, the engineers all worked noon - midnight. Good luck.

------
vignesh343
Hi everyone! Thanks for all the helpful comments and suggestions!

I've learned a lot by reading through your posts and I applaud alttab for
recognizing that communication (rather than hours of operation) might be at
the core of the issue.

For the sake of the discussion (and to help advise me on how to proceed), I'd
like to clarify a few points.

First, we have an intern who does work 9-5 (by his own choice, I told him he
could set his own hours). For the first 3 hours of the day, he comes to my
office asking when my tech-partner will be here so he can resolve some issues.
The reason the office hours is such an issue is because he's not being there
for the intern. Also, we're hiring more interns that start this week who will
also need face time with him in order to advance their projects.

Second, and this is the most important point, because it's come up again and
again in the comments, he is consistently missing deadlines and has failed to
be very productive. His work is of top quality (why I selected him), but his
progress is disappointingly slow. And for the record, he sets his own
deadlines and repeatedly misses them.

Third, if he actually was spending his time outside the office working, I
would have never made this post. He spends some spare time on the weekend
working on the project. The rest of the time he stays up late and gets
drunk/high with his girlfriend. He is constantly distracted by a partyboy
lifestlye. I didn't want to mention that initially in case my identity is
exposed, but at this point, its too relevant of a detail to ignore. I can't
control what he does in his spare time, but I know he can't do those things in
the office.

I would like to note that I have learned a lot from this post and I now
recognize the insistance on timing his schedule is doing me a diservice. I am
going to try to sit down with him and have a heart-to-heart about the work
progress and abandon discussion about the hours. I have been giving him a
convenient excuse to be unproductive by coming off as a prick. I need to focus
more on producing and less on the particulars of when production occurs.
Despite what many posters have said, I like to think of myself as open-minded
and have no problem abandoning my prior philosophy in favor of something that
works. Startups are always a learning process and I appreciate those who have
helped me learn by sharing wise words of advice. Thank you once again posters!

~~~
jey
You're right to forget about the strict hours, but it does sound like there's
some latent problem here. I disagree with the siblings that you're "fucked".
Your cofounder says he's interested in the project still, so it's worth
figuring out what the real issues are and addressing them by talking with him
and cooperatively fixing them. He might not know right away and need some time
to figure them out, but it's important to get the discussion started.

First of all, people are _terrible_ at estimating how long something will
take. You'd be better off noticing the patterns in his misestimation and
adjusting his estimates accordingly in your own head. If it always takes 2x
what he says it'll take, then just double whatever estimate he gives you.

Secondly, not being in at the same time as the intern always shouldn't be a
big deal. If your intern really needs _constant_ handholding, he's probably
not good enough for your project. He should be able to make progress on his
own and send an email to the boss if he has a question, or just work on some
other task until the guy gets in to ask for help. This is just a normal part
of working with other people and everyone has to learn how to do it. We can't
all be at the same place all the time, and hell, some teams _never_ see each
other.

You might also want to remind your cofounder that drinking creates significant
sleep debt, even if you get a full night's sleep, and sleep debt leads to
higher distractability and subtly worse problem solving/thinking. It's
possible that he's in a cycle of stressing out about work -> drinking -> not
being at 100% mentally -> performing poorly -> stressing out more. In that
case it'd be important for him to stop drinking and make sure he has enough
stress-relieving leisure and breaks, time when he doesn't feel obligated to be
thinking about work. Remember that software is a creative field, not a rote
field, so the quality of his thoughts are what matters, not the hours spent at
his desk.

So anyway, I suggest you treat your partner as a _partner_ and start a
discussion to work _cooperatively_ to figure out why he's not being
productive, or not appearing productive. It's very important to show him
respect and show that you see him as an equal partner, and that you're not
just condescendingly bossing him around. After all you want him to _want_ to
correct himself, not begrudgingly keep up appearances.

~~~
hga
Note: interns who need more than a few minutes of hand-holding each day after
being brought up to speed on the project (which _is_ an initial significant
cost) are non-starters in a startup that's got one full time long term
technical employee.

One of the major objectives of many internships is to learn how to do a job,
any job. It doesn't sound like a company of this size can afford interns of
this nature.

BTW, who's idea was it to staff up with interns? Are they going to leave in
August? December/January?

~~~
sheriff
Good point. It's totally plausible that he's coming in late so he doesn't have
to deal with the intern.

------
wangwei
It seems like you are acting like a jerk. You're a startup,why act like a big
company with these kind of silly rules? It doesn't matter when he comes to
work as long as he works the hours and is being productive.

With this attitude, my prediction is that your startup is likely to fail. I
just can't imagine any good developers can stand a co-founder who has such
kind of bad attitudes and false beliefs about how things should work.

------
MattGrommes
Where did you find this "co-founder"? It really sounds like what you want is
an employee you can boss around. Did you ask around for a geek you can give
requirements to like so so many other "business guys" do who think they have a
great idea for a company? You've got a co-founder, not a lackey you can tell
they're "allowed" to sleep in an extra hour in the morning, if they absolutely
need it.

Read what the top-rated comments here say, then read them again. Then read
Michael Lopp's book "Managing Humans". Luckily for you, you asked his question
in the right place. You're getting real advice here that you absolutely need
to take to heart if you want to avoid a whole raft of problems and probable
failure.

Good luck to you if you get your head on straight and good luck to your co-
founder if you don't.

------
jarsj
You just stated why you are a terrible CEO. If you want to succeed doing a
startup, unlearn everything and try to be more like him. At the least don't
make things worse for him. If he is your 50% partner, he has as much right to
decide the office timings as you are.

In my last job, I used to crash in the office most of the time (9 AM to 3 PM),
skip most weekdays, work all night and all sunday. I never had any complaints
and was considered quite good at what I do.

My last job was at Google.

~~~
rick888
"In my last job, I used to crash in the office most of the time (9 AM to 3
PM), skip most weekdays, work all night and all sunday. I never had any
complaints and was considered quite good at what I do.

My last job was at Google."

In a company like Google, there are enough people in the office during normal
business hours to compensate for the time you aren't there.

I can sympathize with the poster. If he (his co-founder) is the only person
working on the technical side of the project, he should be there in the office
during normal working hours.

When they do need to meet a client at 9am (because most businesses in the US
are 9-5), will the developer be able to be there without falling asleep at the
meeting?

It also shows me that the developer lacks discipline. The poster made a
mistake in making him a co-founder. He probably should really be an employee.

I also get a sense that the developer wants to just hack away at the code on
his own time and not have to talk to anyone about it. This is a recipe for
failure. I've worked on many projects like this and what usually ends up
happening is that the project gets finished with little or no input from
customers/other people besides the developer and it fails.

~~~
jarsj
"In a company like Google, there are enough people in the office during normal
business hours to compensate for the time you aren't there."

Not really, there are several projects and average size of a team is quite
small. In my case we were five people working on a quite large project and no
one could compensate for my time. I knew I had to get something done in a week
time and I will figure out how to do it. If needed, I had be there 24 hours,
but otherwise I am my own boss.

~~~
rick888
"Not really, there are several projects and average size of a team is quite
small. In my case we were five people working on a quite large project and no
one could compensate for my time. I knew I had to get something done in a week
time and I will figure out how to do it. If needed, I had be there 24 hours,
but otherwise I am my own boss."

Somebody needs to meet with the higher ups at the company during regular
working hours. It just wasn't you. It also depends on what your project
entails. If it was all internal, you can easily get away with working on code
all day without having to discuss it with customers.

The situation with a startup is different.

~~~
jarsj
I had happily come to office at 7-8-9 AM to meet an higher up or attend an
important meeting or whatever. That doesn't happen everyday.

In an startup, quite contrarily, I had want my co-founder to schedule meetings
taking my timings into account. When not possible, I had come happily.

~~~
rick888
"I had happily come to office at 7-8-9 AM to meet an higher up or attend an
important meeting or whatever. That doesn't happen everyday.

In an startup, quite contrarily, I had want my co-founder to schedule meetings
taking my timings into account. When not possible, I had come happily."

I think coming in late is fine, as long as you can handle the early meetings
when needed and the work is getting done. It doesn't seem like this is
happening with the co-founder here.

------
Aegean
Is he _really_ lazy, or is it just the committing hours that is bothering you?

His committing hours can change significantly than your hours particularly if
he is facing challenging software implementation problems. When you get such
problems (and they come one after the other in a startup) the important issue
becomes fixing that royal problem rather than when or how much time you are
spending on it. Those become the details. If he focuses %100 on the problem
fixing, _when_ you commit definitely tends to become less and less important.

You may say, we have some communication to do in the same hours, well
sometimes also it even helps to cut communication so he can figure out and
finish the job.

This is for someone who is really committing his efforts though. If he's not
solving any problems then best thing to do is fix the business rather than
your co-founder (i.e. quit or make him quit)

------
cheald
Developers are creatures of odd schedules. If he's got the skills to pay the
bills, and gets the work done...let the schedule slide. Programmers work with
computers and data which know no schedule. A tremendous number of them are
traditionally nocturnal, and do their best work in the wee hours of the night.

If he's just lazy (as in, not getting things done) then there's a problem.
But, your post doesn't seem to indicate that he is - just that he doesn't show
up on _your_ schedule.

At a previous job of mine, developers particularly were given flexibility in
their scheduling. At one point, the management were looking to lock this down
for many of the same reasons that you were - they had the perception that
business only happens between 9 AM and 5 PM, and expected that if developers
weren't making things happen in that timeframe, there was a problem. One of my
colleagues told the manager in charge of the change "I'll show up at 8 AM if
you want, but I'm not going to be productive until 11 AM anyhow. I'll clock
out at 5 PM after getting 5-6 hours of work in, rather than clocking out at 8
PM and getting 8-9 hours in". The management let her keep her schedule.

If your partner needs to be working with external contacts during business
hours, or if he is expected to perform customer service duties and be
available when people are calling the phones, that's one thing. If he's the
guy writing the code, maintaining the hardware, and making stuff happen,
_leave him be_. Just because his schedule doesn't coincide with your schedule
doesn't make his schedule wrong. How would you react if he asked you to
conform your schedule to his?

Something you probably don't realize is that he's likely working around the
clock - not just during office hours. You get to clock out at the end of the
day and go home and not worry about the job until 9 AM the next day. A
technical co-founder never gets the luxury, really - we're always watching,
working, monitoring, and fixing. If something breaks at 2 AM after we've been
asleep for a half hour, we get up to fix it. If we're having scaling issues,
we work 36 hours straight to get infrastructure optimized and stable. A
technical founder's job conforms to no schedule, recognizes no business hours,
and takes no holidays.

If you want a happy tech partner, give him leeway in his schedule insofar as
it doesn't actually negatively impact the business of the business. If he's
not available for collaboration, is failing in his duties, etc, he needs to
change something, because he's not doing his job. If it's just "morale", then
honestly, get over it. If you make his job about showing up and having his
butt in a chair from 9 AM-5 PM, then that's what you're going to get a - a
butt in a chair. Established companies can afford that. A startup can't.

------
grammaton
Well who died and made you all-knowing?

Let me guess. You're an MBA. You've probably spent lots of time polishing your
presenting skills and becoming a good salesman, and polish and presentation
are important to you.

Here's the thing - all that polish and poise is useless unless you actually
have a product to sell. In order for that to happen, someone has to be
creating something of value.

Welcome to how the other half lives.

Is he getting the job done? Do you have a product? Is it progressing? If you
can answer yes to these questions, then please get over yourself. You're _one_
of the founders - not _the_ founder. No offense, but suits have a tendency to
be seriously arrogant and think that the entire company revolves around them.
It doesn't. Stay up until one in the morning trying to work around an obscure,
undocumented bug in an unstable library sometime, and _then_ see how you feel
about coming in later in the day.

Also, at the risk of wandering into dangerous territory, from the name I
gather you're Indian, and I'm going to guess you're Indian in the sense you
actually where born and grew up there.

Guess what - you're not in India any more. Business is done differently around
here. Unless someone is working in sales or customer service, or works hours
so incredibly bizarre that they can't communicate with _anyone_ face to face
_ever_ , there's absolutely no call for this overbearing, you-will-work-when-
i-tell-you-too attitude.

He's a programmer - an educated, trained technical professional - not a floor
sweeper. Treat him like a programmer.

You have an opportunity here. Please do the world a big favor and _don't_
become yet another prick CEO.

See Also: <http://paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html> and
<http://paulgraham.com/opensource.html>

~~~
vignesh343
Nice guess, but I'm not Indian and Vignesh isn't my real name. I'm also not an
MBA. The real question here is, who made you all-knowing? ;)

I'm not a prick, I'm just an ambitious startup marketer trying to learn about
how to improve relations with my dev! Instead of being hostile (and racist),
try to be understanding and sympathetic. Who knows, maybe your prick CEO will
promote you!

~~~
vijaydev
Stop seeing him as just a "dev", give him his due respect for being co-founder
of a company and see things improve!

------
rossj
Does he get the work done? If the answer is yes, what's the big deal?

The hours you work don't define your professionalism, at least not this
century.

------
jonknee
Is he not getting his share of the work done? That should be the measure of
laziness--lack of performance--not at what hour he sits down at his desk.

I'm not aware of any studies showing that programming performance peaks
between the hours of 9-5. What's the reason why you want to set this schedule
for him?

------
axod
I'm pretty surprised he hasn't quit already judging by your tone etc.

Is he really lazy in terms of productivity? Or does he just not behave in the
way that you want him to? I'm betting it's the latter.

Developers rarely show up at 9. They often _appear_ lazy. But guess what?
While you're long gone, they're often working through the night.

It sounds like you just want a corporate worker drone developer who shows up
in the office 9-5 and files his TPS reports.

You sound like an absolute nightmare to work with.

------
FraaJad
Assuming your co-founder is a capable techy, there is no reason why you find
issue with when he works.

I work in a tech startup with 8 people and me being 1/3 of the tech team.

I come in to work at 7AM sometime, because I can't wait to see some ideas in
code. Most days, I walk in at 9, when the regular check-in time here is 8:00.
But, I also make sure that I put in my 8 hours on average IN THE office, so
that I do not give an impression of being slack to my non-techy co-workers.

I also do couple of hours of work after going home, depending on the intensity
of work and my own inclination to tinker with alternate ideas and
technologies.

My boss knows this and appreciates this fully.

Just like you expect your co-founder to earn _YOUR_ trust, you should also
earn _HIS_ trust by understanding what truly motivates him.

Unless you are doing some mundane corporate job, where everything is already
predetermined before it lands in email box, having the flexibility to work
whenever you want is a necessity.

This is typical Indian behaviour. Expecting "employees" to turn up on time.
Let go of it. You are not running a manufacturing company. I sense deeper
communication and trust issues here. If you are the "business" guy, $deity
help you both.

------
pook
"I have no recourse because we split the venture 50/50 (no vesting). If I want
to continue on the project without him, he can block it. I've tried buying him
out and he insists he's committed and will not sell under any circumstance. My
only recourse is to quit and block him from taking the idea and running with
it. Neither of these are admirable outcomes and I'd rather run the business as
far as it can go with a lazy co-founder than end it in such an ugly fashion."

I'm sure someone here would absolutely love to work with your "co-founder".
Hell, they may even give him some common human dignity as well as an
interesting project.

------
GBond
I think you need to reassess what is truly good or bad for morale. The "ass-
in-seat" mentality belongs in mega-corps and does more damage than good in a
small team. As a founder, your goal should be to create a culture that
encourages highly productive, self-managed individuals. You want to create a
team that does more with less which requires trusting individuals to manage
their time (ie. working hours).

Your question is regarding your co-founder's motivation but based on your tone
and concerns, I would question if you have the motivation (or DNA) needed to
run a startup. Not to say you are lazy; it seems your "values" are more in
line with those of Big-5 Consulting or a Mega-Corp manager.

------
zaidf
Don't judge him on how professional he is.

Do judge him on how the product's coming.

------
mindcrime

      What I really want is a decent fucking co-founder who can 
      show up at 9 (or 10 AM if he absolutely needs an extra hour 
      of sleep) and be a professional. Does any one have an idea 
      on how to motivate him to do this?
    

Honestly, I think you're as much at fault as he is. First, if you wanted to
dictate each others hours, you should have made an agreement about that before
hand. Sounds like you assumed he would keep to your schedule and he had
different ideas. That's a communication problem that should have been resolved
earlier, but wasn't.

That said, there's nothing unprofessional about him showing up at 10:00 or
11:00 or 12:00 or whenever.. AS LONG AS:

1\. He's pulling his share as far as delivering results.

2\. His physical presence in the office isn't _specifically_ needed for
something, such as a meeting. If there's a meeting or something on the
schedule and he shows up late, then yes, that is unprofessional. But if he's
meant to just show up and sit in a cube|office and write code, it really
doesn't matter.

You're acting as though your personal standards for professionalism and
punctuality are somehow objectively "the truth" and should apply universally.
Guess what.. you're wrong. You can't just impose your standards and your will
on everybody around you.

Sounds like you guys really just need to sit down and talk, maybe with a
mediator of some sort (nothing official probably, maybe just a trusted 3rd
party or advisor) and see it you can reach a mutually acceptable agreement.

------
carbocation
This reads as if it were just written to troll HN. I sincerely hope so, for
the sake of both hypothetical co-founders.

------
adityakothadiya
Increase your patience level. Lower your unnecessary expectations. Have a
playful environment. Respect everybody's style. And agree that world doesn't
move at your pace.

Step back a little. See if there is something you can fix in you rather than
fixing something in other people.

I've gone through this situation, and I've come across this problem by letting
the steam off, trusting people, and giving there own space as long as I'm
making progress on product front.

------
uast23
What are you talking about!!! You call yourself a startup, you call your
partner a co-fouder and at the same time you are bashing him. This means
things are not well at your end. If you are soo disturbed with his attitude
then the best way would be to seperate yourself from him otherwise not very
sure how good your startup is going to be at the end. I think co-founder is
one of "the" most important factors in a startup and you should start only
when you actually find one and finding one means being totally in sync with
his behavior and not going mad over it.

------
webwright
First, never ever ever do a startup without vesting and without a buy/sell
agreement (I've always liked the shotgun clause:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shotgun_clause> ).

Second, is he not working hard or just not showing up on time? If the latter,
let him work the hours that he wants. If you didn't agree with the 8-6
expectations from the get-go, you've no right to impose it on him now. People
work odd hours in startups. A lot of people are nocturnal.

If he's not working hard, trying to "run the business as far as it can go with
a lazy co-founder" is a ridiculous plan. Negotiate a split. Agree to something
like the shotgun clause or being bound by arbitration and get it done. A
freeloading co-founder is too poisonous and a startup is too fragile.

------
jaboody
I had a recent experience that was similar in some ways to Vignesh. Being the
business guy, I hired a developer (employee level not co-founder) to write a
software program for me. I ran into some of the same issues as Vignesh like
lack of motivation from my developer. He had taken the time to educate me
about how difficult it might be to estimate how long it would take to get the
software built and so I understood that it wouldn't be reasonable to judge
performance based solely on results. I also didn't care what time of day he
worked. However, where we ran into issues was that he was never motivated
enough to put in at least 20 hours per week like he originally agreed to.
Instead he would give me a maximum of 10 hours in a week and often only 5. It
was very frustrating because I was expecting on him to at least meet this
standard, one which he had control over. That frustration came across to him
at times and only made his motivation level even worse. The relationship only
got worse and worse over time and we finally ended up parting ways.

The one thing that I am very grateful for is that before I got too far with
working with him, we had a written agreement signed and in place that
stipulated what would happen in case of certain eventualities. This made
parting ways a lot less messy than it could have been.

One other lesson that I learned is that it's critical to understand what
motivates the other person. If you can't understand his motivations and what's
important to him, then you shouldn't be working with him. It's a big, big
problem to have a co-founder or a key employee who lacks intrinsic motivation
to get stuff done.

As a related question to the HN crowd, how many hours per week is it
reasonable to expect a developer to work? Is 20 hours per week too much?

------
paulnelligan
"What I really want is a decent fucking co-founder who can show up at 9 (or 10
AM if he absolutely needs an extra hour of sleep) and be a profesional"

and therein lies the problem ... he's the technical guy, you're the business
guy, you're setting the same standards for him that you do for yourself, which
is inherently wrong.

does he meet his targets??, if the answer is YES, then the problem is yours,
not his.

------
arethuza
Don't you think that there is a chance that your co-founder reads HN and that
there is probably more than enough information in your post to identify
yourself?

You might want to consider the term "professional" - I really don't think it
means what you think it means. Posting this kind of stuff to a popular forum
is far more unprofessional than anything you have accused your co-founder of.

------
Travis
Agreed with what everyone else is saying. A startup is not just a corporation
writ small. In a startup, the only think that matters is results. Your
complaints about morale and "presentation" don't belong in this world.

Let me ask you this: would you be willing to accept a much lower quality of
work just to have him come in at 9am? If not, then why are you pushing the
issue?

------
RiderOfGiraffes
It sounds to me like you are a manager, and your co-founder is a technical
person/hacker. You need to read these:

<http://paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html>

<http://paulgraham.com/gh.html>

Honestly, you are trying to manage your technical colleague, and you don't
understand him. These articles, if you study them, will give you insights to
help you firstly understand, and secondly to work effectively with him.

That would be a win for you both.

------
adn37
\- I agree, it looks unprofessional: then hire some other guy to do the
morning show.

\- As a night owl myself: I can work in the morning (at least just enough to
look professional), but it's like asking you to wake up in the middle of the
night and work. At 3am: are you efficient? I guess not.

Contrarily, when I'm on my own schedule (awake after 10pm), when I get in the
zone, it's like adrenalin in my veins. Can't be compared.

Don't be that guy, there is no compromise here.

------
bena
Unprofessional is a weasel word to say "I don't like this behavior but I don't
have a good reason."

------
clark-kent
Don't give your developer any schedule, let him work the way most comfortable
for him. A developer is a creative person, you can't schedule their
productivity. A developer can go 3 days with no productivity and then spend
one night finishing all the work. Just keep up with him to make sure his
targets are suitable for you and the business. Then just let him flow.

------
instakill
We're also in the early stages of being a start-up and there's also a big
discrepancy in the personalities and working styles of all the founders. The
thing is you just have to accept it and push through it.

The only thing that matter is the results. If you have issues with your
partner, deal with it in a way so it doesn't interfere with the operational
aspect of the business. For instance, myself and my one partner have a
significant personality clash; we used to live together last year and we'd
clash a lot. We came to a great arrangement - when tension reached a point
where debate wouldn't work anymore, we'd fight it out. Not a real fight, but a
physical tussle none-the-less. No punches where thrown but there were bruises
and scratches afterward. However all our tension would have been defused.

I'm not saying you should wrestle with your partners, but find a lateral way
to defuse the unnecessary retardants that are limiting your overall
productivity, or in your case, the company's morale.

------
povirtual
First of all Vignesh, imho you posted this in the wrong site. Has grammaton so
eloquently put: you´re a suit, you´re in the other line. You should seek
advice in a suit´s portal or whatever.

Don´t get me wrong guys, there great advices in here. And I learned and
confirmed some of my believes with you. We, for instance, hired a developer
and we work objective oriented. The only thing we ask is, somewhere in the
day, everyone comes by the office for planning and helping.

I´m a designer, and work closely with developers and it works great , because
our set of minds are very close (creative to creative). I mean, there are and
always will be friction between production and marketing/sails. I guess I was
hoping that Vignesh, as a minority in here, would be treated with a little
more respect (troll? Prick?).

For those who truly helped, I apologise this rant.

Peace. :)

------
jakecarpenter
If your only standard for be a professional is showing up, maybe you should
reconsider why you started your own company instead of working for MegaCorp.

If you are the "business guy", It is your job to build the reputation, and his
job to build the product.

------
almost
Flagged. This is a troll. (yes, there are people who are this stupid, but no,
they don't post messages like that to this board)

------
bandhunt
Honestly, I don't mean to be rude, but maybe you should get out of the startup
world - or work really hard on getting away from the 9-5 mentality. Startups
are about ultra-productivity period!

------
elblanco
Why does showing up in the AM matter? Is there something that has to happen in
the AM vs. the PM? If he puts in his 12 hour day starting at noon does it
really make any difference?

------
mrtron
There is nothing in your post that suggest he isn't doing a great job or
getting a ton done.

Assuming there isn't a problem with performance - perhaps he enjoys working
half of his hours when you are not there. So he can productively get through
code without constant startup issues.

I mean this with no disregard to the importance of things other than coding -
but from experience these issues can make it tough to stay on schedule and get
through the mountains of coding necessary.

A schedule like his could balance these items out.

------
jeb
Set deadlines and monthly targets. Also for the interns. If he meets them,
everyone will see he is productive, no matter when he shows up and morale will
not be affected.

~~~
mrtron
Measure progress by what has been accomplished, not by what is easy to
measure.

(product and business dev, not the timeclock)

------
thibaut_barrere
You're making the assumption that not showing up at 9 means the guy is not
motivated - which clearly is probably totally unrelated. Help him strive by
staying open-minded.

Something that will be beneficial to you: learn about Non-Violent
Communication (<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1892005034>). You're
clearly making a lot of evaluations/interpretations, instead of checking the
facts.

------
bosch
The funniest part of all this is that if he would've posted on an MBA forum
everyone would agree with him and bash the hacker!

------
dannyr
Devs work weird hours. As much as I want to be in the office at the same time
as the other devs in our team, I cannot impose my own hours on other people.

How about just agree that all of you guys would be in the office 4-5 hours
(e.g. 12nn-5pm) at the same time everyday? That way, there is flexibility on
the work schedule.

------
vikram
Is the objective for him to come in on time? Or for the work to be done? I
guess you are having buyer's remorse. Do you guys have a way of seeing
progress in the product? That would be the first thing I would do. This way
you can see if the working habits need to change or not.

------
jeromec
You asked this in the right place. I hope we don't come off as hostile, or
simply defending a fellow hacker. This truly seems like a misunderstanding of
personality types. Try communicating better with your partner, and focus on
what is _really needed_ for success.

------
niels
Don't feed the trolls.

------
Keyframe
Lots of good advice already given. If you can't get over yourself, just
pretend he is working a second shift.

------
damoncali
Either work with his style or fire him. It's that simple.

------
fleitz
How does showing up at 9 am make one more motivated?

------
texasdrummer22
It sounds like Vignesh's 2010 is going to as successful as BP, Tylenol, and
Blockbuster

------
ctingom
You can't.

------
vignesh343
Also, for the record, I'd like to note my hours are 9-9 not 9-5.

~~~
awad
What is it that you do for 12 hours (genuinely curious)?

~~~
vijaydev
trolling :)

------
zackattack
The tone of your post ("or 10 AM if he absolutely needs an extra hour of
sleep") indicates to me that you might have an unhealthy perspective on sleep.
Sleep is incredibly important to the consolidation of memory, and research
indicates that the vast majority of consolidation might occur around the very
last REM cycle! In other words, his creativity, intelligence, and memory will
all be improved through extra sleeping.

------
mkramlich
More advice: if you do part ways, I woudn't worry about or do any fighting
over him "taking the idea". In all honesty, despite what the USPTO might have
you think, nobody can own an idea. Lots and lots and lots of people have been
independently coming up with about the same exact ideas for centuries. The
trick is execution, and timing, and luck, and polish, and firing on all (or
enough anyway) cylinders. I have dozens of notebooks full of ideas --- sitting
on a shelf, and therefore worthless. There's a very very high likelihood that
there is somebody already out there executing on the same idea as you are now.
They might be a little ahead or behind, or a little different in various ways,
and you will never escape that contextual reality. The trick is what you do,
and what you make of things.

Fighting over ownership of an idea will just lead to more grief for you, for
him, and for the community -- except for lawyers, because they'll _love_ the
billable hours thank you very much!

------
mkramlich
I know pg is an advocate of 2+ founder teams, and that there are some
arguments in favor of it, and I respect his experience, but in my mind and
from what I've observed in life this post is like a poster boy example for why
the ideal is to have only 1 founder.

Just start with 1 founder, with 100% equity. Then incrementally grow it out
from there, see if you get traction, etc. If you need to raise cash, exchange
it for equity but still retain as much equity and control as you can. It's
ideal to always have a single "benevolent dictator" who has final say in all
things, for cases exactly like this. As soon as you start bringing in a 2nd
person, a 3rd, more equity partners, especially big ones like in this case,
all kinds of seemingly intractable problems can arise.

Can 2+ founder/partner startups work? Of course. But this situation is a
classic example of what can go wrong with it.

~~~
rlpb
I think you may both be right. Would pg fund this team, or would he be picking
2+ teams after filtering out all the ones that don't work together well?

------
kapauldo
Vignesh- I think you're jumping the gun by assuming he's lazy. As you're
reading here, a LOT of developers are not normal when it comes to hours.
Instead of jumping to conclusions, why don't you work out a dev schedule that
you can both commit to and judge him by that alone. I suspect you're making
the morale issue out to be more than it is. You are being too self-centric and
not really understanding how developers live. Give this another chance and do
some serious self-reflection, and ask yourself if he's truly lazy or if you're
just being inflexible and anachronistic in your assumptions about work time
and productivity.

------
mkramlich
first impression about what might be wrong here:

1\. just moved into offices, now you have a burn rate and clock is ticking,
increasing pressure. maybe should have stayed working at home/Starbucks

2\. have an intern and one who needs guidance. why this early? the more people
you have the more complex things get, and in the case of your tech co-founder
sounds like a greater burden on him. he may not like coming in now when the
intern is there because the intern will interrupt him and so he'd prefer to
work at home or at later times of the day

3\. he's your 50% co-founder and main tech guy, NOT your employee. if I were
in that situation, I'd consider myself as not really having a boss. at best, a
partner. it's true he needs to deliver and you need to have a mutually
trusting relationship or it's going to fail. there are many downsides to a
startup but one upside is the ability to have no bullshit, no bureaucracy, no
boss, and work whenever and wherever and however you want, as long as the work
gets done and you move ahead at a sufficient rate. If you really and truly
think he's not pulling his own weight then the earlier you can part ways with
him the better. None of us here can truly know enough details about your
situation to say for sure whether this situation is your fault or his fault,
but if the trust is gone it may be best to bail.

------
GrandMasterBirt
If the dev is getting the job done, let him work 1 hr a day if he wants that.
If he is slacking off a lot then don't hire interns have him pick up his slack
and show you why he can't get the job done and needs help.

If the dev is really not being effective, try setting deadlines, and giving
him more interesting problems to solve. Don't require any hrs, in fact let him
know that if he can meet the deadline with 30 minutes of work per week then he
earns himself a vacation for the rest of the time. However make sure his
estimates are reasonable. Basically become a "slave driver". Note: DO NOT
MICROMANAGE. Give him a "what must be done this week" thing, and check up at
the end of the week, or before you leave every other day (and by check-up I
mean ask him if hes on target, facing problems, etc, 5 minutes max).

If all does not work, cut your losses.

Regarding the intern and yourself. Question yourself/intern as to the
interaction needs between everyone. If you all need to be together at the
beginning of the day to discuss something, then ask your developer if he can
teleconference in the morning, then go back to sleep (if possible). Let the
intern work whatever hours he/she wants if its also development work and not
client-related. Remember measure productivity VS hours. I find that I can be
more productive in 1 hr on the TRAIN with my DINKY NETBOOK AND NO INTERNET
than 5 hrs in the office or even at home. And usually after the train ride
anything that I haven't solved is already well discussed in my mind and 20
minutes of google + typing solves that when I get home. I can't mention this
enough, if the productivity is not suffering then let him be.

Have you considered flipping the work day? Would you be happier coming in in
the PM?

The only time anyone needs to be in the office is for people to communicate,
and to keep track of people, if minimal communication is necessary there is no
need for fixed hrs especially in a startup.

------
shareme
Simple suggestion, have the interns show up in the pm the same time as the
developer..

