Don't cut and run just because you are the tech guy and he is the biz guy. Figure out the business side of things and get the guy out of YOUR company. It's not going to be the first time you'll have to get someone out of your company who has equity. This is a valuable opportunity to learn how to do this.

If your site sucks, change it. I assume as tech guy you've got control of the DNS records?

Stop asking for permission, and start taking control of your life and your business.

1. You've exhausted all other options; and

2. You decided that what you're fighting for has enough monetary value to justify the time and money you'll spend exploring and pursuing legal remedy.

Of course it's worth knowing your position. If you have no contract it's a mess. If you don't have founder vesting it's a mess. He can walk away with half but then again so can you.

You can take the lack of such formalities as pretext: say to your cofounder you meed some structure. Say you need founder vesting and clear division of responsibilities. Make yourself CEO and then you can decide who designs the website. If necessary you can fire him then (without cause he'll still end up with a piece but that can be better than half).

Or simply talk to him about your grievances and concerns.

If those conversations fail just wAlk away.

Many times it's worth consulting a lawyer earlier rather than later, as such a consultation can do all sorts of things for you - eliminate options you might have otherwise wasted time pursuing, illuminate options you weren't aware of, and also keep you from making any mistakes that could come back to hurt you later.

That last point is most important and most overlooked by non-lawyers, I think. I've learned from friends who have learned the hard way that in disputes like this involving money or business, it's crucial you know the applicable law from the outset and adhere to it, even if you only intend a legal solution as the absolute last resort.

If it does come to that, your case is strongly bolstered in court if you can show that you were aware of the applicable law and diligently followed it from the outset. For example, if your adversary in court broke the law, and then you broke it too to counteract him, the court will look unfavorably on both. Two wrongs do not make a right, especially in the eyes of courts. So it's worth positioning yourself from the beginning of any such dispute as completely in compliance with legal requirements.

If you don't know what those requirements are, an early consultation with a lawyer could be valuable.

PS - it's also less stressful to simply rely on the law to guide your decisions in this uncharted territory, rather than trying to make it up as you go. Don't reinvent the wheel here, instead leverage the hundreds/thousands of years of codified dispute resolution and legal theory.

I wouldn't bring lawyers into something like this until the very end, as they can put a very grim aura on the conversation. Have a heart-to-heart, figure out what you want, what he wants, and how both of you can be satisfied. Once you're sure of that, see a lawyer about making a legally binding agreement.

That is normal. Basically 90% of non-nerds, and 50% of nerds, do that a lot. Get used to it. Get over it. You aren't going to be able to only do business with people who think in the same detail-oriented way that you (and I) do.

As annoying as it is, you should not make your decision based on that. What you need to consider is: what does he bring to the table? Can he effectively do something that brings substantial value to the company? If he can pull his weight for making a profit, then it doesn't matter if he's not as smart as you.

> what does he bring to the table?

is a very good question I didn't notice anyone else asking.

You talk about the negatives, and seem to imply there aren't many positives, but are there any?

Another thing I didn't notice anyone else saying, is maybe you could take a cooling out period. Back away for a little bit (tell him you're doing this of course) and see what happens and how you feel if you get a little "space" for a week or two. I bet you'll get some clarity about what you want to do, one way or the other.

Been there, done that. (I didn't run soon enough)

The heart-to-heart stuff is nice and warm for about a week. If you have been having problems for a long while, trust your senses and leave before you are more heavily invested.

Remember all those books/articles/posts about how having a great co-founder is important. (Anyone got good quotes for this ?)

As a techie you have to take a step back and ask yourself: are my expectations like a programmer or like a person? People aren't machines and partnerships are usually far from perfect at first.

Being inexperienced, your partner is not going to grasp (and hold on to) X-tech concept as quickly as a veteran like yourself. It also sounds like he is wearing a lot of hats (on top of family and day job) so his attention could be very divided.

It may not be time to pay yourselves, but it may be time to consider outsourcing stuff that neither of you can manage - such as the website redesign.

Here's your problem - he thinks he's the boss, and you think you are the boss.

He asks you to implement a feature. You don't think it's a good idea. You both give each other a bunch of reasons why. He ends the conversation with "OK, it's sounds like it's a bad idea then". He retreats for a while, then decides to go another three rounds.

My S.O. and I have similar conversations, though it's usually about tech vs. clothing purchases. Who wants to spend 1000 on a sweater? A DSLR lens is a much better purchase. Anyway ...

The point is, you have unaligned goals or unaligned strategies for reaching those goals. As you've said, you aren't on the same wavelength. That's not really unhealthy - sometimes other people are right when they disagree with you. Sometimes not.

You have two options (IMO):

* You both have to agree that you trust each-other, but you are aware that you disagree at times (due to your separate skill sets, expectations, etc). You both have to work to minimize the impact of the quibbling, and you need mechanisms to help you here - most companies have minute books to record decisions for this very reason.

* Split.

Talk to him about your concerns and see if you can work something out. But if you have any doubt that he's the right cofounder for you (which it sounds like you still will after talking to him), get out now. The longer you wait, the more it'll feel like you should just stick it out because of how much work you've already done and how well it's going.

But though it may feel like things are going great right now, you really haven't invested that much time in this, and you don't want to spend 5 years with a cofounder that you don't feel is pulling his weight. If you don't think you can spend 5 years working with this guy, get out now.

I will say you are deep in it, you should fight and try to acquire more control and swing things your way.

But yea just leave, a conflict like this just gets worse and worse. Specially when one of the parties in the conflict doesn't realize there is one. If you really believe in this business you could always take in outside help but I believe that is your only chance to fix the actual issue.

If you aren't prepared to do that, run.

This is the biggest red flag I saw. You guys should be talking voice or meeting face-to-face more often. You will not solve personality issues via email that neither of you have a lot of time to spare for.

If the OP doesn't make at least a serious attempt to re-connect with his founder then he's at least half of the problem here.

Make time to work with your cofounder vocally, in-person if possible. It's too easy to dismiss concerns via email.

He's counting on you and you both have to put up with a lot. If you can make it through this by stepping back and realizing that it takes two to communicate, then the business has a chance. You might have to try harder to communicate with him but can you honestly say you've tried your absolute best to make it work? Are you going to let communication breakdown without trying as hard as you can to fix it?

Things will get harder as you go on-- this kind of a problem isn't a great sign either way, but if you don't try your hardest the bad sign may very well be about you. Be absolutely convinced you did everything in your power to compensate for his weaknesses (and yours).

If your heart isn't in it enough to try your damnedest, then perhaps that's the problem and not the communication issue. I'd still try to address that because it doesn't sound like it can get much worse if you're considering leaving.

The co-founder doesn't READ his emails/IMs let alone remembering what has been discussed.

I mean, you really can't make that a rule. I read (and re-read) important mails, I guess I'm not the only one, am I ?

In fact I have every client agree with me from the beginning that our emails serve as the written terms our agreements when we both agree in writing. And I ask them to always save every email they send me and every email they receive from me, so that we will both have a written trail of correspondence to refer to when (not if) there are any misunderstandings.

This system has served me well for many many years, so for someone to make an all-encompassing claim that no one reads emails is just plain ridiculous.

What I was trying to convey is that you'll constantly be surprised at the number of intelligent, educated, detail-oriented people who did not in fact read what you wrote.

If you optimize your communications to assume this, you will become a better communicator.

EDIT> There's another important subtext here. I've often seen the following pattern: developer is confronted with user behaviour, but continues to talk about "I do this, I do that", rather than internalizing that others do not do as he does.

I'd list the items that are bothering you most and how'd you like to have them resolved. Maybe run it by a trusted friend - someone who will be directly honest with you. Then, break the list into two categories - can live with it and can't live with it. For the former, make like a duck - let them roll off your back. Just shrug your shoulders, roll your eyes, and say 'Oh that <cofounder name> is silly'. For the later, I'd look to directly address your partner in a manner that is meaningful to him. If you come to some consensus, set ways to monitor it to see if things are improving.

After this, you will have accomplished 2 things. One, you took ownership of the situation in a mature and constructive manner. This helps, especially if things don't work out, since you know you gave it your best (read: less regrets). Two, you'll have a better idea of how likely things are to improve.

If you have done this and things are not working, then look at the options. Is it worth sticking it out? If not, list your options. Often times, the black and white options (quit cold turkey and stick it out) are not the best. Consider options like decreasing your role, decreasing his, bringing in a third party (e.g. a design guy), having distinct boundaries of responsibilities, or you taking over the design element.

If it is time to part ways, I'm sure you'll do it in a professional manner that doesn't burn bridges.

Best wishes.

Aside from the personality issues it doesn't sound like he's bringing enough to the table to help your company elevate to where it needs to be - that's business and in addressing this you might get better mileage using this as the grounds for action because they are explicit and practical.

"You can't keep the site looking the way users want it" and "You don't have the product development skills needed as you are raising feature ideas that are not being asked" are all explicit issues you can use. "I don't like the way you communicate" is not, even if that is really the issue.

I would be VERY careful about dissolving the company and then taking IP with you to a new company, as others have suggested. He would be in his right to lay claim to his share of the IP.

There are ways around that however. Getting the company to grant each of you a non-exclusive perpetual right to the technology, then dissolving the business, then you going off and setting a new business with it is one way (that also lets him do the same, with a new co-founder perhaps, so be confident he won't be successful).

But you MUST see a lawyer (retained personally, not on the business of course)

If you genuinely feel that the non-tech co-founder is not bringing enough value to the table, you must probably be looking at buying out part or whole of the stake. However, I suggest that you get knowledge of the other aspects of the business such as accounting, tax filing norms and such. Most of the other stuff, you can find others to handle for you without parting with your equity.

Basically, do what Arrington did with Calacanis (with regards to running the TechCrunch conference).

First I would get on his case, tell him the website needs to be updated because the service will not grow into a real business in its current 1990s design. Show him websites that I feel are a good standard and what I expect our site to be like. If he can't do that then it is the wrong partnership for me.

I would stop working on the project(in relation to his ideas/feedback/requests), tell him I need the website updated a few decades or I'm on my way.

and then plan do the whole thing on my own while keeping an eye out for another co-founder with some technical ability aswell as business interests.

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You should take the positives out of this project in its current state. You have the technical side down and you know you can get customers to pay for the service.

If all else fails, I'd re-write the business plan in terms of who does what. What are you good at? What aren't you good at? If he has a bad sense of design, maybe he shouldn't be handling that aspect, etcetera.

With that said, I hope that all goes well and that this startup succeeds!

I said hey, here is a deal I am happy with. I am happy to be on either side of this deal, because it is fair.

Not sure how much I can talk about it, but it had to do with one partner getting the company and the other getting an X percent royalty for Y years.

Some people said: live with it, people don't read their email. Well, I send at least 20 mails a day at the daytime job, and I know quite well how much the average person reads from your mail and that when you ask a direct question, it usually gets answered. I've also seen the same email issues with customers.

What does he bring to the table? Well, basically he handles all things I prefer not to. Does he bring something unique that can't be replaced? No. It's pretty hard to find someone who wants to be an entrepreneur though and who wants to put in hard work that might make a profit later. For me it seems to be an almost impossible task to find someone who wants to be an entrepreneur, that is a complement to my skills, who I get along with and is fairly local to me.

I know lots of competent people, but none of them are interested in becoming an entrepreneur unfortunately.

I know from experience though that when working solo, once the fun technical part is over, it's too easy to find another interesting technology or idea and start hacking at that. I've got several of such unfinished projects. That's a big motivator for me to get a co-founder.

Concerning that it seems that we both like to be boss: well, we both have a management function (during the daytime job) where we need to coordinate/steer people. We both are used to being right.

I don't want to bring any lawyers to the table though and I don't want to just run with the project and leave him in the cold (although I could). I wouldn't want him to do that to me, so I won't do that to him. I also know that this would make me feel too guilty, which isn't worth it.

I thought having a working product and paying customers is pretty much, but the comments on here have made me realize that this is just the beginning. Which is it, we'd have to grow the number of paying customer at least 10-fold to be able to replace our current income from the daytime job.

Basically I've decided to give it 1 month and then re-evaluate. I'm planning on putting all issues in a notebook or file somewhere together with the date, because I tend to concentrate fully on work and family and forget about what happened when. Sort of a diary, to get a better view on things.

Thanks for all the advice and insight!

For example: you say your website is a mess. If he can make it ugly, then he has too much control. Move to a CMS with a tight templating system and eliminate this pain point. If he's making repeat (and poor) feature requests, move to a formal feature request system with upvoting and make it public. Then you can point out that a particular feature has no user support. If you're answering the same questions over and over, institute an internal helpdesk system and just refer him to the answered, closed tickets and the search when he re-asks.

Basically, look at it as a management issue. The human factor is always going to be an issue no matter what startup you pursue; if you lack the soft skills to deal with it well, a systems approach might take you 80% of where you need to go until you've expanded enough to bring in another person who's designated job it is to take responsibility for these decisions.

What's the point in staying in a company where you are not happy (in this case because of cofounder). You can either resolve the issue or separate and start something of your own.

The truth is that every founder is different and every one of them has issues. The successful team is going to be able to compensate for each other's weaknesses.

The key here is to really step up the communication-- if you do that and still nothing works out, I'd say only then start the plan to leave.

The day you believe in your heart of hearts that you did your best, but it wasn't enough to compensate, then you've fulfilled your obligation to the partner. I don't sense the OP has yet tried his true best-- or else he'd know there isn't more he could do to make it work.

Would you want him to bail/cut-out on you because he felt like you two couldn't communicate? At least without coming to you first to figure out a way to improve the communication issues?

Sometimes when u wait that long, the opportunity has been taken by someone else, you running out of money or your customer's are just too frustrated with your business. I believe that you are correct that stepping up communication is important but we also have to keep in mind that time is money. My advice would be to put a time frame on it and if the issue is not solved start executing your plan. Also always remember that the health of the business comes first.

I'm interested in hearing more about the company and would consider buying it. You can contact me via email on about.me/sir

(ps. I'd probably want to hire you back ;))