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Comment by greatpostman | Hacker News Reader

Even worse, what’s the advice for when your cofounder is the ceo, has a higher stake than you, and is borderline incompetent? But you’re funded and the idea has promise. Quite the catch 22. Do you stay and do all the work while this person is along for the ride? Assume you can’t push them out

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From my experience, if your CEO is not competent, the business is doomed to fail without an immense amount of luck.

I've worked in a startup that had funding, and a good idea, but the CEO couldn't run a business. He also wouldn't let any of the reigns go to people who COULD run the business, so it was miserable. We'd change directions at least once a week, we'd have him promising customers things that we obviously couldn't deliver, and he'd sign contracts we couldn't honour. He was also abusive to the staff, with the exception of one, who was also incompetent but brown-nosed relentlessly.

If the idea has promise, leave, wait out any non-compete and start again without them. Heck, they may even close down and you'd be free to do as you wish. Or move on if there's no way to do that without being sued into the ground. Life is too short to be miserable at work.

Yeah, I really really wish I could have a run at it myself. It just feels like this huge amount of baggage, and all the value I’m creating is accruing to someone else. I’m at the point to where there’s no real reason to communicate with him other than to keep up appearances, there’s no decent information/ideas/perspectives/developments coming from that side of town.

It still feels foolish to walk away, I could probably will this business into some level of revenue. Question is if it’s worth it to me, a liquidity event would be so far away.

If you can will it into success, break off and start your own. Have a convo with your cofounder that you aren't meshing well together and you won't be able to go the long haul in the current setup - make it easy and you might even be able to divvy up parts of the market while you see if you were right. It sounds like you're going to be unhappy if it fails and also unhappy if it succeeds so change something.

Did they do the fundraising? Do your primary investors like and appreciate this person? If neither are true, talk with your investors and perhaps they can offer advice.

They have an absolutely premium resume. Investors like it

Isn’t their fundraising ability kind of valuable to your interests?

Is there a way you can help find some work for them to do? Like, hitting the pavement hard to wrangle up customers?

I dunno, just spitballing!

Maybe try to remember the reasons you originally wanted to start a company with them? I'm curious what those reasons are if this person is incompetent and trying to start a company. Did they bring the idea AND the money?

I'm in a related situation. I've been working for a company for years, and the owner is incompetent in most areas except sales. His original company is over a decade old but now almost dead. Somehow he's still getting investor money and for the past 5 years has been trying to start a new business, but keeps pivoting before anything is actually released to the public. I'm the main dev and it's getting frustrating, but I know without me he definitely won't get anywhere. And the pay vs time invested is pretty good at the moment.

Help the person grow in a way that minimizes what you perceive as incompetence. How is this not the obvious answer versus drastic action?

Are they bad at contributing technically? Are they lazy? Are they bullish on bad decisions? Do they not listen to input? Are they reckless? Are they overly optimistic? Are they morally dubious? I've yet to meet a founder-type that didn't exhibit at least one (often two) of those traits.

It’s more that they just don’t have good business sense. They can’t make decisions on their own, and so I’m essentially doing their job and mine.

You’re getting caught up in the “I do everything, they do nothing” comparisons. Yes, it’s unfair, yes, you are justified in being annoyed by that. It won’t change your predicament though.

You might balk at this, but since you’re at the cofounder/lead level, you already have the power to make real change. Lead this other person, support them, don’t do their job for them. You likely need to “teach them to fish” so to speak.

There are some tough conversations and boundary setting you likely need to do. It’s going to be hard, because the other party is used to the way things are. If you hang in there, stay patient, and focus on maintaining a positive, growing relationship, to have a good chance of succeeding though.

This weakness you perceive in your peer is an opportunity for growth if you look at it the right way.

Maybe, but this isn’t about growth, it’s about making money. I’m not doing this for my health or the experience, but rather to succeed.

When I refer to growth, I don't mean in terms of the company, or profits, or business success. I mean in terms of your relationship with your colleague.

Most things in life are about relationship management. Without it, the overall endeavour fails.

Who would found a company together with somebody without knowing that person very deeply? You can't be in business if you're incompetent in the most basic skill for businesses: understanding people. How didn't you know before that he or she was incompetent? That makes you completely incompetent as well. Learn people skills before trying to start a business again, or you will be burnt.

Good situations come up, X millions raised. Takes a few months of working with someone to understand them. It’s probably still better than working a regular job

As long as you have bullet proof legal protection on your side. Imagine being stuck and responsible for the mistakes and faults your business partner, with no easy way out. This happened to me, because I was young and incompetent in knowing people. Luckily I learned my lesson for a fairly cheap price, as there were no millions of dollars involved.

Stay but don't wipe their ass for them. Allow the natural consequences of failure to fall on their head, then when they are frustrated and scared offer to resolve the problem for additional equity and or a fixed fee.

Basically set boundaries, those types set very clear boundaries around the money so that's a great place to look when considering what your time boundary is.

If everything else works, or you can make it work, eventually as you scale their incompetence will show, and they will be helped into one of the roles for founders like these: CSO, CIO, CPO, etc.

It is also possible that you just don’t understand their competency or value. It isn’t a given that high skill in rational discourse is necessary for everyone.

Right but it’s a weird feeling, doing all this work and have this person own large stake in it

Worst case you can use the experience for a new company.

> Even worse, what’s the advice for when your cofounder is the ceo, has a higher stake than you, and is borderline incompetent?

I know someone in a similar situation. My advice at the time: get a big white board and a keep running score on who was right on any particular decision. I don't think they took me up on that suggestion.

This isn't helpful if you're already in that situation, but I would never be a cofounder in a venture where all the cofounders didn't have the same stake.

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