Co-Founder Quitting – Rant
Rant Start

1. In college - I started a company and tried convincing a couple of really smart friends to join as co-founders.

2. They were risk-averse. They wanted a salary. Even though I had 0 money, I promised them a salary and asked them to join as employees. They agreed.

3. I had no money for salaries, but I went into crazy action mode and got a couple of B2B clients for a random project I saw that people need (even though our main product is B2C as a startup and we later on shut this B2B section after we raised). I did B2B projects, got a cashflow, and started paying them salaries, while I took 0 salary as I reinvested as much as I could.

4. This went on for like 6 months. And I we were finally able to raise $400,000. The I convinced one of the employees to become a co-founder. He agreed. Gave him almost equal equity even though he joined late after we raised, and he was already taking a salary, while I never took a salary until that day. During this we also graduated college and started doing this full time.

5. We built for 6 months, realized we need more time and resources than we realised, and decided to downsize and take pay cuts. I took the largest pay cut to maintain the morale of my co-founder and team.

6. 1 year later, we are still kind of a sinking ship, and we have not been able to raise our next round. I also have no savings due to my minuscule salary.

7. We all pushed hard, and I managed to secure a $220,000 bridge round from existing investors

8. We are now in the middle of the paperwork to get that money in, and finally, there is hope, and I am getting out of my depression and headaches after a long time.

9. I announced reversal of pay cuts, a new game plan on how we will start generating revenue and also raise more soon.

10. Co-founder, out of the blue, suddenly says that he wants to quit. Says he does not care even if we succeed post the new fund round as he wants to switch domains immediately and work on another tech domain. He is willing to give most shares back.

11. I argued that he still has an employee mindset. Founders don't get to quit randomly; we have a responsibility towards investors and employees who stuck with us through all this.

12. As a co-founder, he has the authority to steer the company the way he wants as well, and I am happy to discuss and pivot together. My proposal is we see this current thing through, spend a few more months with the fresh funding on working on the thing the investors put in money for, and if it does not work out then pivot. If it works, still pivot with further funding.

13. He still wants to quit now as he does not want to work on this domain even if we succeed and even if we pivot later.

14. I was blindsided as everything seemed great until today. Until yesterday we discussed how we are going to build the largest company in our current / new domain

15. Even today, we are not fighting, there is nothing that happened between us, he just had a quarter-life crisis and believes his calling is to work in the said new domain, right now.

16. Even though I can code and have a decent tech background and I can manage simple tech stuff, he is genuinely a very smart tech guy, and like a prodigy. Losing someone of that level as a co-founder is a large blow.

Pretty sure that our investors will not continue the financing now, and without the current financing, I do not have enough money to run payroll nor to close the company if required.

Before anyone asks - he does have a notice period. But I will now have to focus on replacing him instead of focusing on things that matter. Also, employees will also be shocked and might leave as we are currently a very small team, and as company that is already struggling, losing one of its founders will spook the employees, and rightly so. They have families to feed.

I am really sad. I imagined us conquering the world together.

Rant over. Thank you for attending my RantX talk.