-1 co-founder was a designer and after I finished the product (I'm a developer), took 6 months to make changes that could have taken a week or two. Without a boss telling him what to do, he had no motivation to finish anything in a timely fashion. This failed before it got off the ground, but I built lots of nice libraries that I still use today.
-1 co-founder (a developer) gave up after he had to work on the boring parts. A few years later I gave him another chance. We were going to start a consulting business together and I figured, because he already had clients, that things would be different from our previous experience. Well, he took me to his lawyer and wanted me to sign these completely 1-sided contracts where everything I built in my off-time was owned by both of us (he knows I had other companies). He also wouldn't take any risk and give me ownership in his current contracts, but I had to give up mine. Before I even had a chance to tell him no, he changed his mind once again and wanted to "wait a month". 3 months later, I politely told him I wasn't interested and he now works a 9-5.
-The last time in my poor decision making was partnering up with someone that had no tech (besides checking email, etc) or business experience. I was to do all of the development and I figured he could learn the business and marketing skills along the way. His job in the beginning was to do all of the content-creation (which is not easy).
Well, after alpha 1 I built the entire site and he created 5 articles (which was enough to get some people testing it). He was unwilling to learn anything about marketing (because I was better at it as he said) and wanted to farm out all of the content creation to other people (which is a good idea, but not at this stage in the business..especially when we are strapped for cash).
So now we are in a situation where he has nothing to do and my job is to: get customers, design the website, fix bugs, and make business decisions. I'm basically running the entire business myself and he, as an equal partner, is sitting around waiting for things to happen.
So what does he decide to do? Comes up with un-realistic ideas for future business plans that of course only involve things that I will be working on and not him (since he has no tech experience). I also had to fight against his ideas and continue to convince him that we shouldn't be working on the next "Facebook for X" and on the task at hand that had a real chance at making money. This involved hours and hours of phone calls and meetings that took me away from the site that was in alpha. That was another issue: nothing could be explained by email to him, only by phone or in-person.
Everything eventually fell apart and it was a very frustrating experience. He was also a good friend, which made it even more difficult.
I feel like some people like the idea of running a business, but have these un-realistic expectations when it actually comes down to doing the work. I've learned some hard lessons, but I think it will help me in the future when it comes time to find another co-founder.
Maybe try going it alone. I know it's counterintuitive but sometimes building something by yourself is the best way to find a co-founder who's actually any good. I never would have joined the current project I'm on (which is going really well) had the designer not come to me with these amazingly beautiful mocks. Before working on programming projects I had similar experience with music projects -- I'd be trying to put a band together to write songs. I learned that it's a lot easier to get people to work on your projects if you've already started them. Incidentally, it seems to be the same with investors, employees, whatever -- they have the pick of the litter and they'd rather not be first money in. Everyone wants to feel like they're getting a deal and everyone responds to FOMO.
Take your time and find the right partners while you build your businesses - the same people who advocate having cofounders also take the position that the wrong cofounder is worse than none at all.
Here is my experience with startups:
-1 co-founder was a designer and after I finished the product (I'm a developer), took 6 months to make changes that could have taken a week or two. Without a boss telling him what to do, he had no motivation to finish anything in a timely fashion. This failed before it got off the ground, but I built lots of nice libraries that I still use today.
-1 co-founder (a developer) gave up after he had to work on the boring parts. A few years later I gave him another chance. We were going to start a consulting business together and I figured, because he already had clients, that things would be different from our previous experience. Well, he took me to his lawyer and wanted me to sign these completely 1-sided contracts where everything I built in my off-time was owned by both of us (he knows I had other companies). He also wouldn't take any risk and give me ownership in his current contracts, but I had to give up mine. Before I even had a chance to tell him no, he changed his mind once again and wanted to "wait a month". 3 months later, I politely told him I wasn't interested and he now works a 9-5.
-The last time in my poor decision making was partnering up with someone that had no tech (besides checking email, etc) or business experience. I was to do all of the development and I figured he could learn the business and marketing skills along the way. His job in the beginning was to do all of the content-creation (which is not easy).
Well, after alpha 1 I built the entire site and he created 5 articles (which was enough to get some people testing it). He was unwilling to learn anything about marketing (because I was better at it as he said) and wanted to farm out all of the content creation to other people (which is a good idea, but not at this stage in the business..especially when we are strapped for cash).
So now we are in a situation where he has nothing to do and my job is to: get customers, design the website, fix bugs, and make business decisions. I'm basically running the entire business myself and he, as an equal partner, is sitting around waiting for things to happen.
So what does he decide to do? Comes up with un-realistic ideas for future business plans that of course only involve things that I will be working on and not him (since he has no tech experience). I also had to fight against his ideas and continue to convince him that we shouldn't be working on the next "Facebook for X" and on the task at hand that had a real chance at making money. This involved hours and hours of phone calls and meetings that took me away from the site that was in alpha. That was another issue: nothing could be explained by email to him, only by phone or in-person.
Everything eventually fell apart and it was a very frustrating experience. He was also a good friend, which made it even more difficult.
I feel like some people like the idea of running a business, but have these un-realistic expectations when it actually comes down to doing the work. I've learned some hard lessons, but I think it will help me in the future when it comes time to find another co-founder.