It's been a few months now and I'm very frustrated now. For reference, this is for a B2B product. Our current beta testers are people who are in my network that I've connected with over the past year or two.
Red flags for me:
- I've assigned them multiple tasks where he's only completed 10% of them in a subpar fashion and has yet to deliver on the other 90% for weeks or months. And yes, I've assigned him tasks. These tasks are tasks any normal intern can do in less than a week. Yet, they are unable to deliver in a competent manner.
- The fact that I even have to assign them tasks is very frustrating. It adds a new management load to my plate that I should not have to deal with for a cofounder. I feel like I'm managing an intern. I feel like a babysitter.
- I get texted a lot of ideas about the grand future, cool features, and raising money, which is great, except ideas are meaningless. Especially if they are just a 1-2 sentence idea. I always ask them to flesh out the idea more by drawing up some quick wireframes, clarifying the CUJ, and figuring out an actionable plan for what it should look like in reality. I have yet to receive even one document or plan.
- Texts me a lot of surface-level insights about our competitors or about the industry, no real value-adds. I thought this was fine at first because they were still getting used to the industry, but none of their insights have gotten deeper at all. They are the bare basics that anyone in our industry should know. But it throws me off now because it makes me doubt the experience and understanding they have of the industry.
For reference, we're both working on this on the side. I'm a FTE in big tech putting in 30-40 hrs a week on this, sacrificing performance at work and my sleep. They just graduated college (but doesn't have a FT job lined up). Seemingly this would technically mean they can contribute more to this startup (at which point I'm happy giving up more equity).
I know I'm not perfect. I'm a good coder and I have distribution channels for this product thanks to connections and other things I've done in the past. I would 100% prefer to have a cofounder (just someone who brings effort to the table), but I feel like a solo founder in all of this.
And yes, we've talked multiple times about this and it's not changed at all. I'm getting to my limit. I'm tired of having to ask if something is done every week and get an excuse over and over. --TLDR-ish:Basically, I feel like he's the second guy in this tweet: https://x.com/ayushswrites/status/1804221219958325258 Talker, not a do-er.
TLDR: Cofounder is underperforming and delivering subpar work to literally nothing at all. He's not pulling his weight and bringing value to the table, should I fire him? What else can I do?
But to be honest, the “I’m an amazing engineer who does everything well and he’s just a college student without an internship” comes off as being petty.
Can I ask how much experience you have? I can't imagine why anyone would want to work with a college kid as non-technical co-founder. They have no experience, no track record and no network. All things you need in a non-technical co-founder.
As for the question: you already know the answer.
Have you at least talked to them candidly like an adult? I’m sure you have or you wouldn’t be posting on HN. How did the conversation go?
As I see it you got 3 major directions now:
1. Continue working with him, but redefine his role and tasks together with him. If he is a good talker, that is not worth nothing if used correctly. He probably doesn't feel to good about having tasks assigned either, but he might feel better about it if the tasks align with his skills.
2. Part ways with him, ideally on friendly terms. Maybe you can give him a small symbolic role? Maybe you bring in a third person that pulls more and then reduce what he does.
I had this with my band, I liked the guy, but he just wouldn't so enough without the rest of us having to constantly chew his food for him. So I gave him the benefit of the doubt gave him everything he needed for a few months as a hint of what was expected of him. After it got better for a week or two, then he dropped back to doing nothing. That was when we waited if he realized himself that this okay. One horrible gig later we all knew he had to go.
Only perplexity I have is what in the world drove you to hook up with such a loser? You seem to be fairly competent and accomplished ("I work a job in Big Tech") and he seems to be less than useless ("a [semi-technical] college student on summer break"). I guess the "semi" part is only as much as he was able to fake some basic competence while tickling your fragile ego, I bet he's unable to write FOR i=1 TO N without looking it up in ChatGPT.
I'm 4 years in and have been through several funding rounds and stages of growth with my cofounder. The most important factor has been that I trust him completely to act in my best interest when I'm not there and to do smart things on his own. Everything else is secondary.
If you havent incorporated and dont have a legal agreement, just kick him out and continue yourself.
Initial startup phase is like the honeymoon phase, if he’s not a do-er even in this phase, it’s unlikely he’ll work consistently on it all, once you’re gaining traction and have to put more effort to grow.
Once startup gains traction, there’s so many things to work on, deepening product market fit, improving conversion rate at various stages, user tests, setting up teams, hiring good folks, growth hacking, etc. It’s a ton of work, if he cant do things now, there is very little chance he’ll be able to do things then.
I think he lacks self-decision skills and reasoning through his every action to improve upon his tasks, he also seems to lack commitment. It’s typically also a sign of you not being able to 100% sell your vision of the company to him. This is a hard thing to do that you’ll encounter again once you start hiring. But eitherway its best to remove him. People like this who fail to deliver at such an early stage, become worse later. It’s not your job to sell the vision to him. He chose to be a co-founder instead of an employee and he’s not pulling his weight.
I had a co-founder like this once, removed him after giving him 6 months to improve. Best decision I ever took. We are still on friendly terms, and he was a good person. Fire him nicely, and avoid bringing to many emotions into it, I hope your co-founder understands.
Good luck, this is an important matter to settle before things start gaining more traction and then it’ll be harder to remove him.
(And remove all his contributed work, name logo, etc, he can claim % of company or an outrageous price figure, and show it as stolen work later, depending on your jurisdiction, remove all of his work, that you didnt pay for via a legal invoice from him)
I’ve made the mistake myself to try to “change” my co-founder attitude and work ethic but it just not worth it. Fire him and look for a new co-founder who is actually passionate about the company vision and mission
Here is what you really need to hear...stop blaming other people for the results of your decisions.
Who hired him? Who hired the designer really? Who keeps paying the designer? etc etc etc.
You are bullshitting yourself. Stop.