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My first thought was, "Hmmm...so this guy had several co-founders, and all of them left in disgust. What's the common variable?"

Sounds like OP has some personality issues that need to be worked out. And, I got a distinct "mad with power" vibe, as well. Early stage company founders do not need a boss. If they do, they're already doomed to failure. It sounds like this fellow just likes the idea of being chief of something, and isn't all that good at it. Many nerds have started companies without management chops or a good personality, but they made up for it by producing code that solved a problem. I'm getting the distinct impression the OP (who may or may not be strong on the code front) is definitely weak on the management and personality front, but wanted to spend all of this time managing and "networking".

I don't claim to be an expert on this stuff, but I am a nerd, and I do produce (when it's my place to do so, though in my current startup, I produce far less code than my co-founder), and I think I would have ditched this startup, too. Nerds, in general, aren't good at being bossed around, and the kind that start companies definitely aren't good at being bossed around.

But, I agree with you. The guy probably does actually have a good company in him (because dedication and a healthy appetite for risk are the primary requirements...everything else pales in comparison). He just needs to keep assessing how he can do things better next time, particularly when it comes to interacting with co-founders.

Second the "mad with power" vibe.

Wow-- I think the OP failed to learn a few lessons. The biggie is the seeming lack of empathy for his partners and his apparent belief that he's in charge.

At this level, it's a partnership. As a CEO, it's not your job to lead and have your partners follow. It isn't your job to make unilateral decisions on how you spend your time (networking versus coding). With a small team, you can be a cheerleader, a tiebreaker, and a buck-stops-hear guy... But for the most part-- it's a damn partnership.

And it's pretty clear to me that the poster didn't treat it like one, which is a shame.

I think he's very right about the team needing to have the same level of commitment... His deeper commitment is probably why he felt entitled to "lead", even when PG suggested that that might be the problem.

The first one left with no ill will. We are still friends. It's the rest of us that left in disgust :-)

Yeah I'm worried that it reads like I'm trashing my co-founders, but it's not my intent. I don't think there is any way to reflect on what you learned about what works and what doesn't work in a team environment without the some people interpreting that as trash talking your partners.

A couple of things I should probably point out: the SXSW was supposed to be a team trip and the point was for everyone to have the experience of interacting with a bunch of top notch startup people (we aren't from the valley) and I only proposed it a few weeks ahead of time after we had a lot of people telling us that it was the single most useful thing to attend all year (I didn't even know about it before then). Only two of us ended up going, but that wasn't my intention.

When we landed the YC interview, it meant flying from NYC to LAX for a ten minute interview. We were told that only I needed to fly out, but I said everyone should go because they deserved the trip. This was obviously not the cost-efficient approach, but I think it was a lot better for the team.

As for the Goldman comment, I find this to be a typical programmer retort to any questioning of what they are doing: "If you're so great, why don't you do it yourself?" In fact, I didn't question what he was doing for way too long precisely for that reason, and I think that was a mistake. Now as for doing it myself... there are some areas of technical knowledge that I do not have, which is why I brought people on. Now that I'm on my own again, I'm doing my best to get it done myself.

Hey, you probably wouldn't want me as a cofounder, fair enough. I appreciate the better luck next time comment though.

> I don't think there is any way to reflect on what you learned about what works and what doesn't work in a team environment without the some people interpreting that as trash talking your partners.

Something I've noticed about writing postmortems: focus on "What would I do differently?" and "What mistakes did I make?"

Other people are who they are. You aren't going to change them, and they usually have good reasons for what they do.

Most startups fail because of team issues. Mine did - I tried to keep it going for 2 months after my cofounder left, but couldn't. But then, this is my fault. If we'd been further along in development, he might've felt that the startup was a better bet. If I'd listened to him and released the easy version he was proposing, we might've been further along in development (but then, we had good reasons for not doing so...startups are hard). And he certainly had good reasons for leaving - hell, if I'd gotten into HBS, I probably would've left too.

I very much appreciate what you wrote and am very glad it's available. There are lots of great take-aways for my company and, surely, for a lot of people. I'm in the middle of a major release or I'd respond more-- yet, I'm perplexed to come here and see so many people being negative regarding the post. It takes a lot of guts to work on something feverishly for so long and then put things even more on the line afterwards for a post-mortem. It's nothing but good information for people to take in and learn from.

Kudos to you for sharing.

I also was glad he posted, and didn't find his entries as annoying as some here. Tough crowd, I guess.

However, it may be worth noting that tptacek and SwellJoe both have (fairly) successful startups. I don't, and neither do most of the rest of the people here. So when they say something, it's probably worth listening to.

By YC standards, my startup sucks: three years in, I'm nowhere close to retirement.

Give yourself more credit. You have admirers.

You should admire more the people who have to work with me. ;)

Max is definitely a guy to admire.

Either are most YC startups.

A professor told us at the start of grad school that the secret to success was to be "humble, gracious, and hard-working". I see only one of those three qualities in the author.

Here we have a CEO that refuses to step down to keep the company together, that gets two votes in group decisions while his partners gets one, and that places all the blame for failure on his cofounders when things go south. The arrogance approaches the comical, it becomes more and more outrageous as one reads along.

What is the first lesson he learned? "Getting the team right". You see, he had a bad TEAM. That explains the company failure. Yep. Not him. Nothing to do with the guy that chased away perfectly competent people that wanted to work with him. Nothing to do with the guy IN CHARGE.

Leadership is a two way street. You can't have control without responsibility! I don't think there is any team that wants to work with that kind of leader. You will never "get the team right" if you see your position that way!

His second "lesson learned" is to connect with people, and by "people" he means networking with potential investors, advisors, other businessmen, etc. Yet he never connected with his own teammates!

Next, he finally finds fault in his own leadership. You see, he is too much of a consensus seeker so he can't get things done quick enough! Obviously, he places too much trust in his cofounders. THAT is what he believes his problem is.

Then there's this little gem: "Then I decided not to take Paul Graham’s advice to make the other partner our CEO for the sake of civility (a decision I stand by fully), which effectively ended the company." You would rather your company fail than not be in charge? What kind of leader is that? You still stand by the decision that killed the company? What does that say about you?

Good leaders are famous for taking credit for failure, even when it is not entirely their fault. They also DON'T take credit for success. They let others give the credit to them unbidden. That's what causes their subordinates to at first respect them, and eventually love them.

Dear author: does that sound like you?

I'm sorry if I'm a little harsh; as I read this it is blowing my mind a little more with every paragraph.

I don't really think this is fair, but I can see why it can come across that way. I wouldn't step down as CEO to keep a team together that did not want to be together. This is not to be confused with being unable to step aside for someone who is more suited for the position. That wasn't what was going on here.

I placed a great deal of trust in my team for nearly a year and some of that came back to bite me. Yes I did list a lot of flaws, but they were not flaws that everyone had in common, they were the things that stood out to me as being problematic across the length of the venture and, well, I thought I mentioned a lot of things I thought I should do differently. But I am open to hearing more.

"I wouldn't step down as CEO to keep a team together that did not want to be together". You use this word "CEO" as if it means something. It doesn't.

In a three-person (or two-person, by the time this particular piece of drama came to a head) company, there is a team, and there are players, and if the team is running well there's a team lead --- who's there because the team believes they'll function better with a leader. If the team wants to sound "all grown up", they'll call the leader a "CEO". My team still doesn't call Dave the CEO.

Using the word "CEO" in this situation is a "tell". Think about what you're saying.

Honestly, it seems like you treated "your team" more like employees than co-founders. I think this was your critical mistake.

I can see it being problematic that he was the only one doing it full time. That creates a sense of imbalance.

Weigh that against the fact that other people put actual money in; it seems like everyone had skin in the game.

Time is your most valuable resource, so in that respect... if he was working 2x more than anyone else on the team and they were questioning his lack of commitment... that's just weird.

There's also something to be said for the difference between face time and productive time.

>This is not to be confused with being unable to step aside for someone who is more suited for the position.

How was the other person not more suited for the position? The company couldn't survive under you, it might have under him. Do you care more about being in charge or having a successful business? Can you picture yourself working in a successful startup where you are not the CEO?

"Can't have control without responsibility". LOVE IT. AMEN.

Unless you have quit your full-time job, you have no idea what it is like to be truly committed to your idea. No idea whatsoever. I would say "lack of conviction" is an understatement for cofounders that have not quit. They have one foot on the dock and one foot in the boat. When the boat begins to sink...they just lift their foot off the boat and forget it ever happened.

If you can't make payroll, you offer no health insurance, and you have no money, your "full-timers only" rule locks out a huge portion of the talent market. People with talent and experience have better startup options than you seem to be acknowledging.

If you're just getting started, and you have no leverage, picking up part-time founders makes perfect sense.

I'm assuming we are talking about a blend of full-time and part-time cofounders. Let's say you are the full-time cofounder. Before you take the plunge, you better make sure you find out if your "part-time" cofounders will ever plan on quitting their full-time jobs. If they say no to you, will you be prepared for the day they decide to quit?

They will never be as devoted as you will be. They will never be as committed. Sure they may be talented and will write tons of code for you - but what happens if they leave and you have to figure out how all of their code worked?

I'm sure you've read all the articles written by other entrepreneurs about how much dedication it takes to build a company. There are always exceptions to the rule (del.icio.us), but I'd say most successful startups require your full attention.

An easy solution is to have uneven ownership. If you're quitting your day job to work full-time on something, and I'm drawing a salary and working 20 hours/week on a side project, I'll expect you to be a minority partner.

Vest everyone's shares too - if I bail on you early, I might just have a few % of the company when I leave.

I think it's OK to have varying levels of commitment. Of course, the CEO should be 100% in the game. But I've worked with developers part-time, as partners, and found them reliable and committed with a lower number of hours.

So one question in light of this... if you have unequal ownership do you have unequal rights in decision making?

There are no "decision making rights" in a 3 person startup. Anybody can disagree strongly enough to leave and kill the team. Leaders lead. They don't dictate.