Hello redditors I do a lot of reading but never post, and it just so happens I over looked going 50/50 with a friend that is going horribly wrong and I’m not sure how to proceed, backstory about 6 months ago me and a old friend were hanging out and I popped a idea into the air for opening a company mainly just throwing it out to see if he would think it would work come to my surprise he wanted in on the buisness but didn’t have funding and said he would (as I’m sure you can guess that never happened) he has no experience with computers but he is a solid how do you say? Worker bee, he can do one task at a time and does nothing in his free time, I’ve handled import of inventory, funding, SEO and sale streams, and I also handle the physical side with him of moving and making inventory (manufacturing) but now we’re at the point of scaling and it’s time for us to put our money together to get large inventory’s sent into (Amazon) and come to find out he just had his car repod, has no money from the money we made from the company already, now I’m sitting here asking why the hell did I put myself in this situation, we have no formal operating agreement (I know, another rookie mistake) I have brought up previously that the work flow was VERY uneven I’m working circles around him day and night and I’m im burnt out, I brought this up to him this morning and I brought up the fact I want to buy out because it’s been 6 months of the same thing with no changes, his response was a outrageous number for buy out and him proceeding to yell at me saying he works more (I can assure you that is 100% not the case) being as I pay the rent completely for the spot we use to manufacture as well as what was stated above. My worry that out of spite he won’t come to a resolution and force me to dissolve?
What should I do in this situation? he won’t pay for mediation or arbitration and I am done letting him leech off what I built, What do I do???
PS I’ll never do a 50/50 again
50/50 means nobody is the boss. Nobody calls the shots. Nobody is in charge 49/51means someone is the boss, someone calls the shots and someone is in charge.
You need a operator agreement in place - this outlines who is responsible for what, where and how - definitive outlines for workload - without a operator agreement, it’s your word vs. his word.
Secondly - partnerships almost never workout because nobody’s work ethic’s lines up with others and often times partnerships end with one wanting out and one heavily invested.
Source: I am learning from the advice I just gave you from personal experience. Currently ending a partnership in a business for many reasons… and the lesson I’ve learned is I’ll never have another partner. Only employees, operator managers who I pay and retain full control over decisions. Nobody else will run my business by any standard that isn’t the one I set
Thank you very much for the insight! I just presented him with options and long story short he feels the company’s worth more so I might just need to call it and restart on my own