In the final days of July, Partner 1 asked that I prepare a visual presentation of the GUI (graphical user interface) for Partner 2 to review for their “last chance” meeting on the first Monday in August.
Unluckily for me, no GUI existed as I’d been in a holding pattern since mid-July. I started to feverishly produce Prototype 3 (that’s Prototype 2 functionality plus graphics on top of that) on the Thursday night before the Monday meeting that was to take place. Bear in mind that I had no experience creating these GUIs in this programming language, so it was an adventure.
I worked late into the night on Friday then all day on Saturday to produce the GUI. I finished the work shortly before 1am on Sunday and produced a PDF of screen captures and text that I then forwarded along to Partner 1.
I woke up early Sunday and started to hammer at the PDF document again as I’d found some mistakes on proofread on Sunday morning. Within a few hours I’d hammered out a new PDF and sent it to Partner 1. He thanked me for my work and said that it was exactly what he was looking for. Phew!
Partner 1 later went on to explain that while a valiant effort to get the presentation going for Partner 2, the GUI he was looking for looked more like “a traditional wizard program” than what I’d designed. I ended up doing substantial rewrites to Prototype 3, and it took two days, but in the end the code was way shorter and cleaner and Partner 1 was pleased with the results. Granted, it took two days of prompting from me for him to check, but still, at least he did look at it and I was on the right track.
Partner 1 called me on Monday afternoon and confirmed that Partner 2 was out. I totally expected this. Like the girl you want to date who never returns your calls, the outcome had been clear all along!
And then there were two. Partner 1 didn’t seem that positive this time around, but tried to suggest that the two of us could run the company. On top of that he kind of pointed out that he wasn’t getting any hits for <our product buzzwords here> on Google Alerts, so while “not a showstopper, he was kind of concerned”. I can’t begin to tell you how chafed I was that the worth of our prospective company’s idea was tied to hits from Google Alerts, or if Google Alert hits were important to Partner 1, why didn’t he track hits from Google Alerts back in May before another principal was ever considered for the business?! This would’ve been a real time saver for me, you know, before I started putting in 19-hour workdays between my career job and developing the prototypes for our company.
Anyhow, after the departure of Partner 2, in our new, two-person business he’d handle all of the business stuff and I’d continue doing what I was doing. We’d move forward and incorporate as planned.
Over the next 10 days I heard next to nothing from Partner 1 and I was concerned since we were nearing our 8/18/2009 meeting with the attorney and still didn’t know when or where we were going to meet. Partner 1 wasn’t returning my calls and wasn’t responding to email more than once every day or two. I was very, very unhappy in particular because we were probably going to have to cough up at least $1000 for lawyer costs to get the incorporation straight. Given all that had (or more to the point hadn’t) taken place up until now, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to incorporate with Partner 1 at this point!
I ended up meeting with an old friend of mine and his wife on Thursday night for dinner (a social visit) and happened to mention the (broken) state of incorporation and he said that he was willing to help test the application. Excellent! This was even more excellent since to date I was the only one to have tested it and heaven knows if it was going to work on any systems other than mine!
The Thursday before our meeting with the attorney I called and emailed Partner 1 about the attorney meeting and if we were still doing it. It took him 24 hours to get back to me, so Friday night I tried to call him again. Still nothing. Damn! Shortly after I’d emailed him, Partner 1 dropped me an email sending me a time and place for the meeting and also noted that he was about to get a new job and that his time to dedicate to the company would be limited.
So, let me get this straight: we waited for one principal for almost two months and now you’re out, too? Is that what I’m reading here?
I started writing a rant to Partner 1, then stopped and rewrote, then stopped and rewrote again, then stopped and stepped away.
Eventually I ended up sending an email with details something that read like (summary): “I don’t think we should incorporate. Details here. … etc …”
I heard back later Saturday afternoon with an email that essentially said “we’re on the same page and I’ll talk to you tomorrow”.
We’re on the same page?
We’re on the same page?!
Wait, weren’t you ready to spend like $1000 on an attorney two days ago?! Someday I’d really like to know why Partner 1 soured on the business so solidly over the month of August. Did something happen at home? Was it the lack of Google Alerts hits after all? Was it me? I don’t really want to know now because I have way too much to do and can’t afford to lose focus.
Lesson learned is: starting a business with friends is probably no different than starting a business with other associates. Sure, you can trust and admire your friends as friends but the rules change when you become co-workers. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t become business partners with your friends; this does mean that you can probably expect everything to change for better or for worse.
