Hey Andrew, I actually glossed over that out of respect for the 2 guys. My purpose was not to bitch about them, and many people who will read this post in my network will know who I'm talking about. There were mistakes made on both sides, but in the end I bent over backwards to accomodate them and as soon as YC was over and they could say they were YC founders they bailed. I'm not saying its entirely their fault - I should have picked up on the warning signs but I was off fundraising for 2 months and didn't notice. But I did consider them my friends, and they didn't care what position I was left in if they were to leave. Anyway, I'm sure we both learned a lot from the experience.
I think it's great that you take the high road and don't resort to dragging other people through the mud. You definitely seem to place the responsibility all on yourself, which I imagine is not always the full truth. Not providing any reason at all, actually makes it sound as if the two co-founders just randomly and completely bailed on you. (Which may be exactly the truth)
I was trying to imagine a logical scenario, for example they had an even better opportunity. Or perhaps it was better to split before the stakes became to high. Maybe the salaries were not going to be what was expected, there were disagreements on responsibilities, etc. I can imagine a lot of scenarios.
Not to diminish your article, which I found extremely interesting. It was just a point that definitely seems like there was a greater story to be told.
Well, if you Google around, you get Peter Delahunty. It looks like he's gone from being a CTO at a few places (including 99dresses) to just working under a CTO. It looks like his strategy didn't pay off.
Perhaps a good approach in this type of circumstance is to explicitly leave it unanswered. (eg. "both left for reasons that are not the point of this post")
I find it refreshing that we got this level of truth and detail from a startup post-mortem. The price for that transparency is selective opacity in a few still-sensitive areas. I get the deal.
I experienced a co-founder split not too long ago and I can definitely tell you from my personal introspection that you may need to look deeper than "it was my fault for not seeing the warning signs".
It always takes two to tango and you're right to not bitch about them but then saying you were stabbed in the back is silly. Being a founder is tough, having co-founder problems is tougher, clearly understanding what your part in the dynamic is or was is even more difficult.
Sometimes, too, to get this level of internal depth takes distance from the people and the experience. It took about six to eight months for me to figure out what was rightfully my fault and what was rightfully my co-founder's fault - beyond "seeing the warning signs early".
Also, I don't know what your captable looked like but if you were the controlling interest you cannot and should not expect anyone to care about what position you're left in - you must be prepared to shoulder the burden on your own for a bit if they decide it isn't worth their time anymore. The more you own it the more you own it.
Hope you're okay and sorry if this comes off as admonishment, it actually comes from a heartfelt place. You're welcome to contact me personally if you want more support.
[EDIT]
Re-reading my comment, I might be coming off too much as an armchair psychologist, I'll leave the comment up for posterity and maybe you'll find something useful in it or not. Either way I think you've handled yourself well and hope that you yourself are doing well.
1. Even though I'd already spent 2 years on the startup, the first co-founder I bought on had the same equity as me. He wanted it, and I wanted someone fully committed.
2. I was off fundraising for 2 months, and my mistake was not communicating that really well with them. I wasn't a great leader at that time. However, I did notice something was off but I just thought it was post-yc depression (which is actually a thing, apparently). I asked them outright if everything was ok, and they said sure, that it would all be fine when we got back to Australia and moved on. I trusted them, and they lied to my face.
3. I think they were very naive, not malicious, in how they left. They thought everything would be fine if they just left, but thats not how startups work.
4. One of them refused to talk to me or give me an explanation after he left. I had to practically force him to meet me for some closure. Its like getting a divorce with no explanation.
I made mistakes too so its not all on them, but at the end of the day a co-founder is supposed to be your partner through thick and thin, and they bailed without talking through the issues at all which equates to stabbing me in the back. And they made sure to tell me this after I'd reimbursed them for thousands of dollars in expenses for their YC adventure.
The purpose of this is NOT to discredit them. I'm not a huge fan of them, but they dont deserve to be villified. I'm just trying to be a bit more transparent about what happened so that its helpful to some readers. I'm sure they've learned from the experience and will treat their next cofounders differently if they do start something else.
In progress on a startup now, and I have realized the most important thing is trust between the cofounders. There is a lot of people who want to be 'cofounders' but don't understand what it means, the real consequences and also what real company control means.
I also think YC might not be helping here - since being a YC founder is such a cachet resume item, the value of growing a company is discounted. This results in real problems as you have illustrated.
In the end, if you don't trust and know your cofounder as well as your SO, it's going to make the hard things that much harder.
I was in the same situation. In my case the reason why the co-founders left wasn't told was because the reason was that they thought their partner was too naive and incompetent to work with. Not something so easy to say straight to the face. In hindsight, I think there was no wrong in feeling betrayed in my case, but at the same time the co-founders did no wrong either. We were too inexperienced to handle the situation gracefully. Break-ups can't be amicable all the time. Everyone has their side of story.
The point went over your head, in any failed dynamic there are always mistakes made on both sides. I'm trying to encourage her to think deeper (not write) about it beyond not catching the "warning signs" which places her in a victim position. Whether she was or not, victim cycles create repeat patterns until the person sees their own role in it.
I'm encouraging psychological healing. I've very much been through a very similar experience.
[EDIT]
It actually sounds like it turned out well since she did end up with a solid co-founder relationship anyway. I'm leaving this up for posterity but now think my thoughts on this are unwarranted.
I'm curious what YCombinator has to say about that kind of behaviour. Is this a unique case? Has it happened before? How do you prevent it from happening? What's the benefit of being able to say you're a YC founder?
>What's the benefit of being able to say you're a YC founder?
Being able to attach the YC brand to your resume is probably very helpful when seeking investment for a new venture or applying for a job at a BigCo.
Although I have no knowledge of the situation beyond this (very well written) post, I don't think it's farfetched that a couple developers would join an existing company just to experience YC and improve their Valley credentials.
I can see some truth in that if you follow through. Bailing from something with high visibility will hurt your reputation rather than hinder. I assume that the prospective partners of these two people would be able to use google to find out just how substantial their YC foundership was.
YC already knows the dangers of "co-founders" who don't have a working history beyond getting together for this startup. Technically, it should have filtered her out of the application process.
I didn't mean it absolutely even though I wrote it that way, obviously there are many other factors and exceptions, but this is one factor that would work against a person.
As for indicators, I think that people who have worked together for a shorter amount of time are more likely to break up. This is because fights and disagreements between co-founders are inevitable, and in startups they are more intense compared to regular business working relationships. When you have history with your cofounder, then you've likely survived those fights and are more likely to get through the ones coming.
You are 22 and female. I kind of hope you will cut yourself some slack. As a 49 year old woman, I kind of wonder how much this whole thing was impacted by your gender. It took me a long time to realize how many doors are just not open to me because of my gender, how many subtle ways I get cut off from information I very much need.
Of course, male or female, you did a helluva lot for someone your age and I really think you should feel fine about the entire thing.
you say in the article you were "stabbed in the back" by your co-founders. that's provocative language and an extremely strong indictment against two people that are not anonymous.
Sometimes people do get stabbed in the back. It is not provocative it is true. We don't know if there's another side of the story, but leaving without warning just right before a round close is really crappy.
Political correctness is bullshit. They stabbed her in the back at the worst possible moment, its called stabbed in the back because had they not lied to her about their motivations she could have gotten real co-founders and not be left out without a team at the worst possible moment. They are lucky they got the treatment that they did on this post-mortem. They deserve to get outed publicly. If not only as a service to others who would not knowingly do business with those whose word holds no water.
We don't even know the full story (& probably never will), yet you're already advocating mob justice? That's about as bad, if not worse, than the political correctness you're railing against.
