Started a VC backed startup with 3 people.
The CEO is a hard person to deal with (as he should be to an extent, you want these qualities to an extent).
But he's so into his own thing that one of the co-founders left due to never feeling heard (someone with 20+ years in the industry, a massive loss), and I do not feel like a co-founder.
The startup makes no money, and our runway is until March.
I feel like a badly paid employee. Nothing besides my immediate (tech) responsibilities is taken into account, and I want to expand myself in other dimensions, so I built a few side projects and they started making money very quickly (guess what, this CTO can sell).
Now he feels that the company is entitled to this money, and, according to the contract he's right, but I want that clause removed and future income to be mine.
if he decides to party for 9 hours on a friday night and I build some products instead, I don't see why I can't reap the benefits of choosing a different hobby.
How to proceed?
Is an income generating side gig during a startup a bad idea? I can make money easily, but I'm not allowed to influence anything other than how software is written in the company, so I get bored.
The salary isn't great and the war has made prices soar (we started before the war, so things have changed).
I feel a little tighter with money than I'd like. But he seems to want us to suffer together, even though he is in a DINK household with parents that can help him out if he needs it, and I'm by myself with nobody to turn to if I lose all my money.
I'm a very disagreeable person, and I get tired of butting heads. Maybe I'm better off as a solo founder and he's better off with a more agreeable CTO?
He's very competitive (of course) He saw me setup a landing page once in about 30 minutes (hugo + netlify forms), and the same thing took him 3 weeks with webflow, he did not take my work seriously at all and belittled it (that same landing page was repurposed and has generated money for my side gig)
He also lies a lot to investors. Lie isn't the word he likes, but he uses purposely misleading speech to raise money, and I'm afraid of losing my reputation. I know this is normal to an extent, but not in our culture, in the US, sure, but here it will bite us in the ass.
Any advice here?
Any more info you'd like to know? I have no idea who to ask this because I have to be anon or people find out too much of what company this is. This post might already be risky.
Starting an income producing side gig as a founder, whether you feel like one or not, is problematic, especially if you signed the seemingly standard “everything I create is owned by the company” sort of employment agreement or contract.