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Ask HN: Has anyone quit their startup (VC-backed) over cofounder disagreements?

77 points stuck12345 | 1 comments | 11 Apr 25 16:16 UTC | HN request time: 0.202s | source

hey fam, i'm at a crossroads where i'm considering quitting my startup and taking a job or alternate paths and wanted y'alls opinion.

i've been working on a startup for the past 24 months with my cofounder - i'm technical and she's mostly focused on business side (with basic frontend skills). we got funded roughly 18 months ago for an idea i came up with, was excited about, and found some traction.

since then we pivoted away from it. we've roughly pivoted almost every month to something new. there is no longer any vision or clear problem we're trying to solve. each month is our team simply fishing for ideas in different industries and domains hoping to strike gold.

my cofounder and i don't see eye to eye on most things anymore and the relationship has also deteriorated significantly. my cofounder and i disagree upon what problems to focus on. for her, ideas only resonate if there are competitors who've raised $X million or hit certain revenue targets with no regard for interest or insights for a problem/industry. i'd much rather work on problems where i have some inherent interest and/or urge to solve the problem but it's hard to drive a shared vision between us both. this is a constant point of friction.

after 24 months of working together, i'm now considering quitting my own startup to either go do another one or take a job where i can find problems and a future cofounder. has anyone been through anything similar in the past? how did you navigate this?

1. indymike ◴[11 Apr 25 17:59 UTC] No.43656592[source]▶
> since then we pivoted away from it. we've roughly pivoted almost every month to something new. there is no longer any vision or clear problem we're trying to solve. each month is our team simply fishing for ideas in different industries and domains hoping to strike gold.

I've parted ways with cofounders in two of my five startups (they left, not me... I could afford a zero paycheck for a little while, they couldn't). In both cases we did better after the split. In both cases our original business idea didn't work out, and we were trying to stay alive. It felt like pivoting from idea to idea. Reality was it was just trying to sell and collect enough to make payroll in six weeks. So we went from whatever we were doing to custom dev shop... Survival mode sucks.

When got down to a single founder, it wasn't that one person was right or wrong about what the business could do. It was that the business could execute well enough (without cofounders fighting and second guessing) so it could survive, and eventually find something to productize.