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Comment by senidesantjagi | Hacker News Reader

My cofounder told me they are aware and that “they don’t see me as critical person to the business” (quoting). He also told me they don’t want to talk to me. I doubt any of that is true, but not 100% sure. I could reach out to them, but would that be a good idea? And how could I do it in the best way possible?

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Speaking with the investor directly is necessary for this. From my limited (books and movies) understanding of law, a protracted legal battle can tie up resources in a company. Even if they win it will slow them down. Note to mention all that taking place in a bad economic environment (Covid-19). You need to plan with your lawyers how much legal pressure you can put, given your resources and the proof you have of the damage done to your IP. You can then make best and worst case scenarios of how much that legal pressure will hit the offending company and discuss those scenarios with the investor. If you can both see a mutual beneficial way to avoid that legal mess you could end up with a deal.

P.S. If you were to start a company like your co-founder is doing, would you also have the same IP problem he has? Cause if not maybe the investor can invest in you, if you wanted to try that?

Obviously there are a lot of unknowns so don't take anything I wrote here at face value. Do your due diligence.

I could start a company without my cofounder. I already have plans to do so, but I won’t use the same business idea or IP. I have a different vision (hence our conflict to start with). I agreed he could keep the IP and I would be free to do something else, in exchange of a ‘buy out’. But after 6months of negation he kept adding new terms to the buyout and the last one, to which I couldn’t agree, were very restrictive covenants of 24 months. His argument was that he didn’t want to let me use his money to start my own business in competition with him. I could approach the same investors, but with something new, something fresh. The IP is mine, and my plan is to license it to another business at this stage.

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