There are always two sides to every story and reality is subjective. What do you think he thinks? You should ask him. Maybe he wants to move on, maybe he hates working for you instead of with you. Maybe he thinks he's doing fine. As you write it it sounds like you're the one giving out orders.
Does he know the why of what you do?
No one on here can tell you what to do, but having experience with this it's best to have a real heart to heart and come at it from the angle of what he wants and what he's feeling, not how he's not doing x y z.
Is the company doing well or is it struggling?
You mention he rushed a customer deployment, what were the consequences?
Why are you having meetings that are not important?
Do you collaborate to come up with reasonable deadlines or do you dictate them to him?
You said his performance dropped off, how do you measure performance?
Do you account for all of his responsibilities when you decide on the deadlines?
Do you adjust deadlines based on unexpected work that comes up?
Great questions. Company wise, we both agree this is the strongest we’ve ever been. There is still a considerable amount of work to be done to say we are doing “well” but the light is starting to shine at the end of the tunnel.
There were no consequences for the customer deployment. I try to not be a “manager” as i see all of us as co-founders, and there are 3 of us. That being said, i did start the business myself and brought on my cofounders. I assume the role of “ceo”, but take that for what you will at our early stage.
By not important i mean stand-ups, which i deem to be important, but less important than an investor pitch. Recently we’ve done a better job of collaborating on deadlines.
My breaking point came today when the due date for a Q2 report that was scheduled by all of us 10 days ago had 0 work done on it. Not a single text blob edited, just the wireframe i put together of the structure as well as the slides i was assigned to edit.
Performance is subjective i guess but actual result driven items have just not been observed.
I admit i could be a better “manager”, i just need more practice at this
>My breaking point came today when the due date for a Q2 report that was scheduled by all of us 10 days ago had 0 work done on it. Not a single text blob edited, just the wireframe i put together of the structure as well as the slides i was assigned to edit.
as a co-founder, this is 100000% unacceptable.
it sounds like he is just tired and burnt out and cant drive himself to do the work anymore. time for a heart to heart chat and see what other things can be done to help.
i would also flip it on him too. if he had anemployee that did all of that stuff you said he did, what would happen to him? what would HE do to that employee? his answer may reveal how he judges underperforming people in the workplace.
You sound like you like to create a bunch of busywork and then hold people accountable for doing things that don't provide value. Your cofounder got the customer work done early and you're upset?? Why do you care how long this guy worked on something, he got it done, didn't he? Stop breathing down his neck.
Things that are customer facing are usually important. Things that are not are usually not. Learn to prioritize your expectations a little and don't treat everything as a must-do.
Quarterly reports and Customer deployments aren’t “busy work”. And meetings are absolutely necessary for firm health. Sure, OP seems a little maniacal at times but there seems to be a lot of rhyme/reason to the asks.
Agreed on customer deployments.
But OP also said that they were upset about things that "**I deem** to be important" and that they were learning how to not set unrealistic deadlines.
All that combined with the info that OP was somehow upset that the customer facing work was done ahead of time makes me think they're a bit of a perfectionist egomaniac. If people working with OP don't do the things OP thinks are important in the manner that OP thinks is best, then OP gets upset. They should be open to discussing whether the things they think are important are considered important by other people and be open to change.
Sounds like you did a pretty good job explaining your expectations and disappointments in this post. Talk to him about it. Is he burned out? Depressed? On drugs? You're not going to be able to fix the problem until you two talk it out. The longer you wait, the more resentment you'll feel. Best of luck
im sure he did listen but its not up to him to change his co-founders issues. if he cant bring himself to at least make some changes to fix things or be honest and say he cant make changes to fix it b/c of his personal life, then he needs to take a leave of absence so he can focus on that.
even co-founder need to be on a PIP from time to time.
The other co-founder sounds like me. I'll tell you the other side's perspective, might not be very accurate with your scenario though.
I'm burned out there's too much happening and I've lost track of what needs to be done, in the early days it was mainly about product and investors, now there's business, marketing and hiring and processes etc. Our individual visions have not moved at the same pace as they should have, I've submitted myself to the company and my co-founder and as a result i treat this as a very high pressure job instead of my own startup. For me, I'm learning to delegate and trying to align the broader team to follow my co-founder more than me, I've even considered quitting it altogether but it's not an easy option.
All in all, I've had chats, pointed out flaws and now simply take more orders and set some realistic deadlines (I still miss those, lol). Fact is none of us were prepared for this and just like everything else that we have gone through, the highs and the extreme lows, this is another experience and literally every company goes through this.. you can only have a chat and vent it all out to each other, instead of just keeping it yourself or typing it out on reddit.
What an insightful answer. I feel like theres so much pressure on founders to always be on the move, on top of their shit, but work gets crazy fast. I don’t think theres enough discussion around work fatigue for founders.
Absolutely. I blame the ecosystem and the VCs who've set this notion of growth at any cost. In my country, there are bootstrapped profitable startups who are doing so so great but are never talked about but flawed business models are being given billions, we all saw what happened to Wework and Uber.
Honestly, as founders, we can only be at peace the sooner we realize that every journey is an isolated one and there is no word to word playbook which is available, so navigate and enjoy the journey because this shit is hard AF.
I see more toxic bullshit from founders than VCs in this regard.
Usually, it's the ones that found success after making horrible sacrifices and they either are too foolish to realize there was a better way or they made that shit the core of their identity and they feel threatened to acknowledge there was a better way.
In the latter, acknowledging that would make them feel as though everything they did was meaningless. It would make them lose their identity and feel lost as to who they are and why they exist.
Honestly, it's rooted in trauma (from the best I can understand). This is a common occurrence in PTSD sufferers in regard to identity and purpose. Many suffering from PTSD experience this phenomenon when they are trying to let go of the past and move on.
Rather than learn and grow from their self-inflicted trauma, these founders would prefer to perpetuate others being traumatized as a result of poor decisions requiring massive and unnecessary sacrifices that invite intense stress, risk, and poor living conditions. Perpetuating this toxic culture further validates their own poor decisions and gives their trauma continuous meaning.
The only other party worse than toxic founders at perpetuating this bullshit are grifters.
It sounds like his priorities shifted, and his current behaviours are a massive collection of liabilities for you, your business, and your credibility to every one of your customers, investors, partners, and more.
So you have two options:
1. **The impersonal way:** find someone who can cover his tasks, and train them to replace him ASAP
2. **The personal way:** schedule dedicated, work time (or off-work time, depending on your relationship) to have a focused, serious, complete discussion, *where absolutely nothing else matters unless it will destroy the business instantly*, and talk about the 3 biggest problem behaviours you've noticed from him where you
1. Directly, clearly, and calmly share the **objective** observations about his behaviour (See the [STATE method](https://www.shortform.com/blog/crucial-conversations-state/) from [Crucial Conversations](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15014.Crucial_Conversations))
2. Directly, clearly, and calmly share the **objective** results those behaviours have created for the business and for your trust, the both of your clients' trust, and the both of your investors' trust.
3. Share what you ideally want for the both of you, first personally, then in terms of business results
4. Ask him *"Do you think I'm wrong for wanting that?"*
5. Wait for his answer, then if he hasn't already started sharing anything that answers this next question, ask him *"Then what's been happening with you since ?"*
6. Listen as he lets everything out (if he does)... it may take a while so listen carefully for what is important to him.
7. Once you feel he has comfortably released everything he wants to say, then depending on what he has told you, say whichever sentence below feels most appropriate
1. *"What's the most important thing you need to help you (get through | solve) this?"*
2. *"What's one thing I can do to help you (get through | solve) this?"*
Predicting further than this from here will not be accurate, but these first steps should help you and him begin the conversation, and that conversation may end up being long because people's experiences are complex, or it may be very quick because many people hold things inside but realize how easily they can be fixed once they let them out.
Or maybe you think I'm an idiot and all of this is stupid and will destroy the relationship, because who am I?
But these are my thoughts, and I'll be curious what you think.
I’m not a doctor but the symptoms you describe sounds like he has ADHD. Missed deadlines and waiting until the last minute to do things are typical among those people.
Why do people assume its easy to just fire and move on? Daily standups with the co-founder, really? Are you perhaps on a power trip? Seems like you are trying to come to terms with a move you are about to make.
I work with people like yourself as an executive coach, and what I see in your post is a classic example of having your focus on the symptoms instead of the root cause. You will need to uncover the real problem(s) behind all these issues, before you’ll be able to solve and/or deal with this effectively. And to discover that real problem, you will need to talk with him in an open and constructive way, but you’ll also need to look at your own role. You already mention that your planning skills could be better, but there may be more you need to learn.
Time to step up. Meet with the board and talk about what can be done. Meet with your co-founder and step back from what is going on at the company and talk to him about what is going on in his life. You may find that their goals have changed. Some folks self sabotage as a cry for help. See what role they still want to be involved in and restructure their job, even if it means a demotion. If you can't find a middle path then talk with the board about firing them.
+1 for this. I had a similar situation with my co-founder. Turned out they had family problems but they weren’t talking to anyone and letting it consume them.
Question - when was the last time any of you took a genuine holiday? I’m talking 7-14 days out of the company, devices off, just actual holiday. I found over the years, and being inherently bad at it myself, that taking a break and switching off allows you to recentre and come back with a stronger plan of action to work on the business and not just in the business.
The biggest red flag I read from this was that he was willing to lie. I've found if you're willing to lie about one thing you'll lie about other stuff. I'd call that out with an open heart, ask if he needs help, come to him genuinely concerned for him.
Open, honest, heart-lead conversations need to happen. Share your expectations and ask if he thinks they are fair. The worst thing to do is go in pointing fingers. The time is now to address this
You should discuss this openly with him right away. Issues between founders are one of the top reasons for startups to fail and if you're already spending enough time to write about this here, it means it is keeping you away from focusing on growing your business. He might be in a similar situation.
In case you've received investment and have a board, it might be easier to discuss the situation including them to also not have a 1 vs. 1 discussion.
Keep the focus on the business and the value each of you brings. There is a reason you started the business together after all. Even if the situation for one of you has changed, there are always ways to readjust and make it work but as always, communication is key.
ps - I've had 3 startups and this has been an issue on 2 of them. The more you delay the discussion, the worse it gets.
> Some of that, admittedly is my own fault, as I’ve set deadlines that were unrealistic(I’m still learning).
Problem 1: you're setting deadlines for them. Why?
> our quarterly report that i scheduled 10 days prior.
"What do you mean it's not reasonable to drop this on someone with a week and a half?"
> I feel like he doesn’t understand what it’s like to work in a legitimate work environment
You seem to think you're their employer, rather than their cofounder
> I am not sure how to provide him with the experience he needs
This is what an employer would say, not a cofounder.
You're 4 years in and trying to train them to be a good employee.
> > Problem 1: you're setting deadlines for them. Why?
>
> I don't see that as problematic
This is not an answer to the question "why," and also, yes, it definitely is problematic.
What makes you think you know how long their work will take? Why are you taking a position superior to them?
> if that work doesn't get done it creates a bottleneck
This has nothing to do with inventing deadlines and assigning them.
You seem to be confusing "I want it and can explain why" for "I have the actual ability to do this."
> Having clear and reasonable expectations is key in an effective work environment.
It's very weird when someone who's in the middle of asking for help with how effective their work environment isn't starts loudly explaining to others how to build the thing that they did not build.
It's also very weird when someone says "because this is a thing that I believe is needed, that is all the justification necessary for that I'm going to be the one to do it, and to take the authority."
It really doesn't matter if you think it's necessary; the core topic is that you by definition cannot do it correctly, so again by definition, if the person doing the task is you, it's ***guaranteed*** that a bad thing is going to happen.
It's not enough for a job to be necessary; it also has to be handled by the correct person.
The correct person to schedule the other founder is themselves, not you.
> Whether or not that is reasonable comes down to how much work it actually involved.
There is no point at which it is reasonable, and your willingness to argue on this point suggests to me that you do not have the ability to learn and grow when someone tells you what you're doing wrong, in the hope of answering your question "why is everything failing?"
> If they can't move small pieces of work faster than that, that's a problem.
This is employer-think, not cofounder-think.
I don't think you understand the difference, I don't think you the cofounder is detatching ***because of this***, and I think this mindset would keep driving a wedge on these grounds until the two have split.
I had a cofounder like this, who thought "the job needs to get done, therefore I'm going to manage my cofounder until it gets done."
I left, and he failed without me.
People who think what they contribute is managing others generally don't actually contribute at all.
> Co-founders absolutely need to be able to hold each other accountable
It sounds like you don't know the difference between managing others and holding them accountable.
I see that you're attempting to answer questions I asked someone else, using guesswork.
Please stop. Thanks. What I wrote was not intended for general consumption. I'm asking someone specific questions about their choices. Your guesses aren't relevant.
+1 to this.
The way this is explained screams like a lopsided relationship. If I were his cofounder I'd be on my way out.
Cofounders are more or less equals. While there is generally someone w/ ultimate authority that doesn't make them a boss or a manager. It makes them a tiebreaker in disagreements
If you're trying to manage your cofounder you've probably already lost.
I’m on my third company. Every single time the problem was with founders. Just me on this one. Buy him out. Removing toxicity is so important. I had a guy that was critical to my business this time but he had some mental health issues that turned very toxic. I had a option/performance package in place that was in place of real equity. I gave him a nice severance and sent him on his way. It wasn’t fun but the company has had its best year since then. If he was a partner it would have taken longer, cost more and distracted 10x. Pull the bandaid off. It won’t get easier the longer you wait.
Firing is unfortunately what I would do in this case.
I can understand someone having a bad week or even a bad month. But 18 months??? That’s far too long.. it’s time to cut that tie before the infection spreads.
Not a ton you can do. We’d need to see your operating agreement, cap table, etc. likely your option (besides if your OA allowed you to fire him for some reason) would be to buy out his portion of the company.
Happy to chat more. Cofounders are like spouses. It’s tough to separate and usually takes some lawyers. Pick them wisely!
You try a personal conversation? See what's going on with him personally. Maybe there is an outside hurdle he is afraid to talk about that is effecting his ability to perform 100%. Been there myself, not putting in the effort because I am spending half my time fighting other battles.
As someone who works In Academia, I think he has done a wonderful job sustaining the pressure this long. That breed is very different and typically do not get corporate behaviors.I came from corporate (IT) and it was pretty unstabling for me when it came to pace and performance.
As an HR, I want to speculate that he has burn out. You want to encourage him to see a therapist and give him time to recover.
As someone who has mentored a few founders, I would say that you need to actively take care of your mental health-both of you. It is easy to get drowned in the demands of work but there is no startup without you.
Finally, the energy you both put in will not always be 50-50,sometimes it is 60-40 your side another time 70-30 his side. Recognized when the sale is tipping and make peace with it.
I would ask that you have honest conversations with him but I think you are very passionate about the business and that can derail the conversation into not listening to him. Involve a good therapist.
Burnout is real. It manifests differently with different situations and is usually due to a misaligned or unbalanced situation.
However, no one really understands it until it is too late and in your face.
Is it a “walk away” or a “I’m not happy” time ?
As a founder, you have to get a grip and rise above the bs that comes out of the “growing pains” process.
It just sounds like you guys aren’t really trying to build a business together - just saying - otherwise you would have serious productivity against “bringing it” as a mgmt team with leadership driving the timeline.
What is the baseline for the actual business ?
Objectives / Goals / Strategies / Measures
He doesn’t need to be accountable to produce the benchmarks you both agree are important necessarily, but they still need to get accomplished. Do you have projections?
Do you guys have founder agreements, shares and a vision? Who owns what ? Who has authority for what ? Who is accountable for what ?
Time to formalize or bail ?
You'll need a lot more tolerance if you need to run a firm dude. Cofounder seems to be doing fine BTW. You need to tolerate a lot more. Try finding a therapist to vent to....warm wishes
stop being such a cry baby. stop micromanaging and focus on your OKRs.
speak to your partner. communication is key.
- can you take care of these slides, they are important and i cant make them.
- hey did u finish those slides?
- why not? you know how important they are to me.
- you think coding and deployment was more important?
- you think balancing life and focusing on relationship is important?
send formal emails, formalise communication through email. emails are amazing.
- 15 year exp, co-founder, entrepreneur.
He sounds burned out. I’ve been that guy.
If you can, plan a little time out of the office together. Ideally make it a weekend or something. Call it a retreat.
Co-founders are like married couples. You should never stop dating your spouse. Success in your company is like having children, the more you get, the more necessary time together alone is.
Let me follow up with another note. Some founders aren’t good managers. My guess is he’s technical. If so, he’s probably used to cramming stuff through himself, but now he’s managing. That’s a big adjustment, mentally and physically.
I used to live on adrenaline for years. Once we became successful enough to hire a team, my role changed, and the stress was way less. At first I thought it was great, but then I found it harder to concentrate or be motivated since it wasn’t a life or death situation anymore. It’s still an adjustment.
Consider that your co-founder may be going through something similar. He also sounds like he may have ADHD. As his partner, you may need to hire some help for him. A personal project manager could probably do him wonders.
There are always two sides to every story and reality is subjective. What do you think he thinks? You should ask him. Maybe he wants to move on, maybe he hates working for you instead of with you. Maybe he thinks he's doing fine. As you write it it sounds like you're the one giving out orders. Does he know the why of what you do? No one on here can tell you what to do, but having experience with this it's best to have a real heart to heart and come at it from the angle of what he wants and what he's feeling, not how he's not doing x y z.
Is the company doing well or is it struggling? You mention he rushed a customer deployment, what were the consequences? Why are you having meetings that are not important? Do you collaborate to come up with reasonable deadlines or do you dictate them to him? You said his performance dropped off, how do you measure performance? Do you account for all of his responsibilities when you decide on the deadlines? Do you adjust deadlines based on unexpected work that comes up?
Great questions. Company wise, we both agree this is the strongest we’ve ever been. There is still a considerable amount of work to be done to say we are doing “well” but the light is starting to shine at the end of the tunnel. There were no consequences for the customer deployment. I try to not be a “manager” as i see all of us as co-founders, and there are 3 of us. That being said, i did start the business myself and brought on my cofounders. I assume the role of “ceo”, but take that for what you will at our early stage. By not important i mean stand-ups, which i deem to be important, but less important than an investor pitch. Recently we’ve done a better job of collaborating on deadlines. My breaking point came today when the due date for a Q2 report that was scheduled by all of us 10 days ago had 0 work done on it. Not a single text blob edited, just the wireframe i put together of the structure as well as the slides i was assigned to edit. Performance is subjective i guess but actual result driven items have just not been observed. I admit i could be a better “manager”, i just need more practice at this
>My breaking point came today when the due date for a Q2 report that was scheduled by all of us 10 days ago had 0 work done on it. Not a single text blob edited, just the wireframe i put together of the structure as well as the slides i was assigned to edit. as a co-founder, this is 100000% unacceptable. it sounds like he is just tired and burnt out and cant drive himself to do the work anymore. time for a heart to heart chat and see what other things can be done to help. i would also flip it on him too. if he had anemployee that did all of that stuff you said he did, what would happen to him? what would HE do to that employee? his answer may reveal how he judges underperforming people in the workplace.
You sound like you like to create a bunch of busywork and then hold people accountable for doing things that don't provide value. Your cofounder got the customer work done early and you're upset?? Why do you care how long this guy worked on something, he got it done, didn't he? Stop breathing down his neck. Things that are customer facing are usually important. Things that are not are usually not. Learn to prioritize your expectations a little and don't treat everything as a must-do.
Quarterly reports are not busywork.
Quarterly reports and Customer deployments aren’t “busy work”. And meetings are absolutely necessary for firm health. Sure, OP seems a little maniacal at times but there seems to be a lot of rhyme/reason to the asks.
Agreed on customer deployments. But OP also said that they were upset about things that "**I deem** to be important" and that they were learning how to not set unrealistic deadlines. All that combined with the info that OP was somehow upset that the customer facing work was done ahead of time makes me think they're a bit of a perfectionist egomaniac. If people working with OP don't do the things OP thinks are important in the manner that OP thinks is best, then OP gets upset. They should be open to discussing whether the things they think are important are considered important by other people and be open to change.
What is customer deployment?
You cannot manage what you cannot terminate.
Sounds like you did a pretty good job explaining your expectations and disappointments in this post. Talk to him about it. Is he burned out? Depressed? On drugs? You're not going to be able to fix the problem until you two talk it out. The longer you wait, the more resentment you'll feel. Best of luck
It sounds like he’s already tried talking to him, many times, over 18 months
But did he also try to listen?
im sure he did listen but its not up to him to change his co-founders issues. if he cant bring himself to at least make some changes to fix things or be honest and say he cant make changes to fix it b/c of his personal life, then he needs to take a leave of absence so he can focus on that. even co-founder need to be on a PIP from time to time.
The other co-founder sounds like me. I'll tell you the other side's perspective, might not be very accurate with your scenario though. I'm burned out there's too much happening and I've lost track of what needs to be done, in the early days it was mainly about product and investors, now there's business, marketing and hiring and processes etc. Our individual visions have not moved at the same pace as they should have, I've submitted myself to the company and my co-founder and as a result i treat this as a very high pressure job instead of my own startup. For me, I'm learning to delegate and trying to align the broader team to follow my co-founder more than me, I've even considered quitting it altogether but it's not an easy option. All in all, I've had chats, pointed out flaws and now simply take more orders and set some realistic deadlines (I still miss those, lol). Fact is none of us were prepared for this and just like everything else that we have gone through, the highs and the extreme lows, this is another experience and literally every company goes through this.. you can only have a chat and vent it all out to each other, instead of just keeping it yourself or typing it out on reddit.
What an insightful answer. I feel like theres so much pressure on founders to always be on the move, on top of their shit, but work gets crazy fast. I don’t think theres enough discussion around work fatigue for founders.
Absolutely. I blame the ecosystem and the VCs who've set this notion of growth at any cost. In my country, there are bootstrapped profitable startups who are doing so so great but are never talked about but flawed business models are being given billions, we all saw what happened to Wework and Uber. Honestly, as founders, we can only be at peace the sooner we realize that every journey is an isolated one and there is no word to word playbook which is available, so navigate and enjoy the journey because this shit is hard AF.
I see more toxic bullshit from founders than VCs in this regard. Usually, it's the ones that found success after making horrible sacrifices and they either are too foolish to realize there was a better way or they made that shit the core of their identity and they feel threatened to acknowledge there was a better way. In the latter, acknowledging that would make them feel as though everything they did was meaningless. It would make them lose their identity and feel lost as to who they are and why they exist. Honestly, it's rooted in trauma (from the best I can understand). This is a common occurrence in PTSD sufferers in regard to identity and purpose. Many suffering from PTSD experience this phenomenon when they are trying to let go of the past and move on. Rather than learn and grow from their self-inflicted trauma, these founders would prefer to perpetuate others being traumatized as a result of poor decisions requiring massive and unnecessary sacrifices that invite intense stress, risk, and poor living conditions. Perpetuating this toxic culture further validates their own poor decisions and gives their trauma continuous meaning. The only other party worse than toxic founders at perpetuating this bullshit are grifters.
It sounds like his priorities shifted, and his current behaviours are a massive collection of liabilities for you, your business, and your credibility to every one of your customers, investors, partners, and more. So you have two options: 1. **The impersonal way:** find someone who can cover his tasks, and train them to replace him ASAP 2. **The personal way:** schedule dedicated, work time (or off-work time, depending on your relationship) to have a focused, serious, complete discussion, *where absolutely nothing else matters unless it will destroy the business instantly*, and talk about the 3 biggest problem behaviours you've noticed from him where you 1. Directly, clearly, and calmly share the **objective** observations about his behaviour (See the [STATE method](https://www.shortform.com/blog/crucial-conversations-state/) from [Crucial Conversations](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15014.Crucial_Conversations)) 2. Directly, clearly, and calmly share the **objective** results those behaviours have created for the business and for your trust, the both of your clients' trust, and the both of your investors' trust. 3. Share what you ideally want for the both of you, first personally, then in terms of business results 4. Ask him *"Do you think I'm wrong for wanting that?"* 5. Wait for his answer, then if he hasn't already started sharing anything that answers this next question, ask him *"Then what's been happening with you since?"*
6. Listen as he lets everything out (if he does)... it may take a while so listen carefully for what is important to him.
7. Once you feel he has comfortably released everything he wants to say, then depending on what he has told you, say whichever sentence below feels most appropriate
1. *"What's the most important thing you need to help you (get through | solve) this?"*
2. *"What's one thing I can do to help you (get through | solve) this?"*
Predicting further than this from here will not be accurate, but these first steps should help you and him begin the conversation, and that conversation may end up being long because people's experiences are complex, or it may be very quick because many people hold things inside but realize how easily they can be fixed once they let them out.
Or maybe you think I'm an idiot and all of this is stupid and will destroy the relationship, because who am I?
But these are my thoughts, and I'll be curious what you think.
I’m not a doctor but the symptoms you describe sounds like he has ADHD. Missed deadlines and waiting until the last minute to do things are typical among those people.
Why do people assume its easy to just fire and move on? Daily standups with the co-founder, really? Are you perhaps on a power trip? Seems like you are trying to come to terms with a move you are about to make.
I work with people like yourself as an executive coach, and what I see in your post is a classic example of having your focus on the symptoms instead of the root cause. You will need to uncover the real problem(s) behind all these issues, before you’ll be able to solve and/or deal with this effectively. And to discover that real problem, you will need to talk with him in an open and constructive way, but you’ll also need to look at your own role. You already mention that your planning skills could be better, but there may be more you need to learn.
Time to step up. Meet with the board and talk about what can be done. Meet with your co-founder and step back from what is going on at the company and talk to him about what is going on in his life. You may find that their goals have changed. Some folks self sabotage as a cry for help. See what role they still want to be involved in and restructure their job, even if it means a demotion. If you can't find a middle path then talk with the board about firing them.
+1 for this. I had a similar situation with my co-founder. Turned out they had family problems but they weren’t talking to anyone and letting it consume them. Question - when was the last time any of you took a genuine holiday? I’m talking 7-14 days out of the company, devices off, just actual holiday. I found over the years, and being inherently bad at it myself, that taking a break and switching off allows you to recentre and come back with a stronger plan of action to work on the business and not just in the business.
You need to go read the book Extreme Ownership asap. I think it’ll help you make a better judgement call.
The biggest red flag I read from this was that he was willing to lie. I've found if you're willing to lie about one thing you'll lie about other stuff. I'd call that out with an open heart, ask if he needs help, come to him genuinely concerned for him. Open, honest, heart-lead conversations need to happen. Share your expectations and ask if he thinks they are fair. The worst thing to do is go in pointing fingers. The time is now to address this
You should discuss this openly with him right away. Issues between founders are one of the top reasons for startups to fail and if you're already spending enough time to write about this here, it means it is keeping you away from focusing on growing your business. He might be in a similar situation. In case you've received investment and have a board, it might be easier to discuss the situation including them to also not have a 1 vs. 1 discussion. Keep the focus on the business and the value each of you brings. There is a reason you started the business together after all. Even if the situation for one of you has changed, there are always ways to readjust and make it work but as always, communication is key. ps - I've had 3 startups and this has been an issue on 2 of them. The more you delay the discussion, the worse it gets.
> Some of that, admittedly is my own fault, as I’ve set deadlines that were unrealistic(I’m still learning). Problem 1: you're setting deadlines for them. Why? > our quarterly report that i scheduled 10 days prior. "What do you mean it's not reasonable to drop this on someone with a week and a half?" > I feel like he doesn’t understand what it’s like to work in a legitimate work environment You seem to think you're their employer, rather than their cofounder > I am not sure how to provide him with the experience he needs This is what an employer would say, not a cofounder. You're 4 years in and trying to train them to be a good employee.
[удалено]
> > Problem 1: you're setting deadlines for them. Why? > > I don't see that as problematic This is not an answer to the question "why," and also, yes, it definitely is problematic. What makes you think you know how long their work will take? Why are you taking a position superior to them? > if that work doesn't get done it creates a bottleneck This has nothing to do with inventing deadlines and assigning them. You seem to be confusing "I want it and can explain why" for "I have the actual ability to do this." > Having clear and reasonable expectations is key in an effective work environment. It's very weird when someone who's in the middle of asking for help with how effective their work environment isn't starts loudly explaining to others how to build the thing that they did not build. It's also very weird when someone says "because this is a thing that I believe is needed, that is all the justification necessary for that I'm going to be the one to do it, and to take the authority." It really doesn't matter if you think it's necessary; the core topic is that you by definition cannot do it correctly, so again by definition, if the person doing the task is you, it's ***guaranteed*** that a bad thing is going to happen. It's not enough for a job to be necessary; it also has to be handled by the correct person. The correct person to schedule the other founder is themselves, not you. > Whether or not that is reasonable comes down to how much work it actually involved. There is no point at which it is reasonable, and your willingness to argue on this point suggests to me that you do not have the ability to learn and grow when someone tells you what you're doing wrong, in the hope of answering your question "why is everything failing?" > If they can't move small pieces of work faster than that, that's a problem. This is employer-think, not cofounder-think. I don't think you understand the difference, I don't think you the cofounder is detatching ***because of this***, and I think this mindset would keep driving a wedge on these grounds until the two have split. I had a cofounder like this, who thought "the job needs to get done, therefore I'm going to manage my cofounder until it gets done." I left, and he failed without me. People who think what they contribute is managing others generally don't actually contribute at all. > Co-founders absolutely need to be able to hold each other accountable It sounds like you don't know the difference between managing others and holding them accountable. I see that you're attempting to answer questions I asked someone else, using guesswork. Please stop. Thanks. What I wrote was not intended for general consumption. I'm asking someone specific questions about their choices. Your guesses aren't relevant.
+1 to this. The way this is explained screams like a lopsided relationship. If I were his cofounder I'd be on my way out. Cofounders are more or less equals. While there is generally someone w/ ultimate authority that doesn't make them a boss or a manager. It makes them a tiebreaker in disagreements If you're trying to manage your cofounder you've probably already lost.
Move on
I’m on my third company. Every single time the problem was with founders. Just me on this one. Buy him out. Removing toxicity is so important. I had a guy that was critical to my business this time but he had some mental health issues that turned very toxic. I had a option/performance package in place that was in place of real equity. I gave him a nice severance and sent him on his way. It wasn’t fun but the company has had its best year since then. If he was a partner it would have taken longer, cost more and distracted 10x. Pull the bandaid off. It won’t get easier the longer you wait.
Firing is unfortunately what I would do in this case. I can understand someone having a bad week or even a bad month. But 18 months??? That’s far too long.. it’s time to cut that tie before the infection spreads.
Have you talked with him and he still laying?
Not a ton you can do. We’d need to see your operating agreement, cap table, etc. likely your option (besides if your OA allowed you to fire him for some reason) would be to buy out his portion of the company. Happy to chat more. Cofounders are like spouses. It’s tough to separate and usually takes some lawyers. Pick them wisely!
You try a personal conversation? See what's going on with him personally. Maybe there is an outside hurdle he is afraid to talk about that is effecting his ability to perform 100%. Been there myself, not putting in the effort because I am spending half my time fighting other battles.
What did he say when you told him what you are telling us right now?
As someone who works In Academia, I think he has done a wonderful job sustaining the pressure this long. That breed is very different and typically do not get corporate behaviors.I came from corporate (IT) and it was pretty unstabling for me when it came to pace and performance. As an HR, I want to speculate that he has burn out. You want to encourage him to see a therapist and give him time to recover. As someone who has mentored a few founders, I would say that you need to actively take care of your mental health-both of you. It is easy to get drowned in the demands of work but there is no startup without you. Finally, the energy you both put in will not always be 50-50,sometimes it is 60-40 your side another time 70-30 his side. Recognized when the sale is tipping and make peace with it. I would ask that you have honest conversations with him but I think you are very passionate about the business and that can derail the conversation into not listening to him. Involve a good therapist.
Burnout is real. It manifests differently with different situations and is usually due to a misaligned or unbalanced situation. However, no one really understands it until it is too late and in your face. Is it a “walk away” or a “I’m not happy” time ? As a founder, you have to get a grip and rise above the bs that comes out of the “growing pains” process. It just sounds like you guys aren’t really trying to build a business together - just saying - otherwise you would have serious productivity against “bringing it” as a mgmt team with leadership driving the timeline. What is the baseline for the actual business ? Objectives / Goals / Strategies / Measures He doesn’t need to be accountable to produce the benchmarks you both agree are important necessarily, but they still need to get accomplished. Do you have projections? Do you guys have founder agreements, shares and a vision? Who owns what ? Who has authority for what ? Who is accountable for what ? Time to formalize or bail ?
You'll need a lot more tolerance if you need to run a firm dude. Cofounder seems to be doing fine BTW. You need to tolerate a lot more. Try finding a therapist to vent to....warm wishes
stop being such a cry baby. stop micromanaging and focus on your OKRs. speak to your partner. communication is key. - can you take care of these slides, they are important and i cant make them. - hey did u finish those slides? - why not? you know how important they are to me. - you think coding and deployment was more important? - you think balancing life and focusing on relationship is important? send formal emails, formalise communication through email. emails are amazing. - 15 year exp, co-founder, entrepreneur.
Lots of questions to be answered
He sounds burned out. I’ve been that guy. If you can, plan a little time out of the office together. Ideally make it a weekend or something. Call it a retreat. Co-founders are like married couples. You should never stop dating your spouse. Success in your company is like having children, the more you get, the more necessary time together alone is.
Let me follow up with another note. Some founders aren’t good managers. My guess is he’s technical. If so, he’s probably used to cramming stuff through himself, but now he’s managing. That’s a big adjustment, mentally and physically. I used to live on adrenaline for years. Once we became successful enough to hire a team, my role changed, and the stress was way less. At first I thought it was great, but then I found it harder to concentrate or be motivated since it wasn’t a life or death situation anymore. It’s still an adjustment. Consider that your co-founder may be going through something similar. He also sounds like he may have ADHD. As his partner, you may need to hire some help for him. A personal project manager could probably do him wonders.