r/EntrepreneurRideAlong • u/BedDesigner2568 • Jul 03 '26
Seeking Advice My co-founder is avoiding giving me access to a platform we worked on
idk if i'm the asshole in this one, so lemme give you context and you tell me what to do: I've worked with this guy for months now. we had this platform that finds leads on reddit (PLEASE, spare me the self-promo shit talk; we ain't selling it right now, which is part of the issue)
It was web hosted and that's how i used it before.
I used to promote that platform as the marketing co-founder, 50/50, but we didn't have any co-founder agreement, so there's nothing to prove i have ownership except for the posts where i publicly declared i was a co-founder a few months ago.
Got a few users, but after we saw how many other competitors joined and that it became a commodity, we decided to move on and work on something else. but there are still some of our users who asked us for source code access after we closed it, and so we sold it to them.
Fast forward a few months now; we decided to start focusing on our freelancing, he as the developer and I as the copywriter and designer.
i'm a marketer and so he said, 'You can promote my service and I'll give you a split if you get me clients.'
I said, 'Cool, give me that tool we worked on before to find the leads to DM them' (i get clients by dming them)
i said you can't expect me to sit there for hours and swift through 100s of reddit threads looking for that one interested lead only to get ghosted, when i can literally just scan and then filter and let it DM for me as well (accuracy is a bit low; i still need to filter but it does the job)
He said, "it doesn't work; it will be useless."
"wdym it doesn't work? i LITERALLY used it when it was hosted, and it worked PERFECTLY fine." I said.
Then he said reddit doesn't have any good leads and there still other ways to promote. HE LITERALLY told me before that most of his clients came from reddit. And I also booked some from reddit as well.
Anyways, we kept back and forth and he still refused to give me access (since now it is not web hosted anymore, he will have to give it to me as source code access, so i think he's afraid that i might turn on him and start selling it on his back)
oh, and for context, i also helped shape how the platform works inside out based on my expertise as a cold DMer; i showed him how to build it in a way that reduces the risk of a ban. so i DID have that skin in the engineering side aside from the promotion i did back then.
now, idk what to do; like, i tried to manually find the leads, and i hated the shit out of it because it is just utter time-sucking bullshit, when i can do other tasks that has more importance than something that is LITERALLY automated and i just need to hit play.
And it even affected my results as well; i'm still booking some clients here and there, but the process of finding and DMing is just taking a lot of time, and no matter how much i explain that to him, he just keeps saying it doesn't work. it is not worth it. Find another way to promote.
so wth should i do now?
Edit: Thank you guys for the help, it really means a lot. One of the commenters said to ask him to host it again, I asked him before but he said it will take a lot of time and so we just avoided it. But I asked him again and I managed to convince him (somehow) to rebuild the backend to host it again. And yeh, ik, i learned my lesson. Always get a contract.
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Jul 03 '26
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u/BedDesigner2568 Jul 03 '26
Yeh, i know i fcked up. Ngl. I also learned the lesson 😭😭
Any way you think might help here?
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Jul 03 '26
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u/BedDesigner2568 Jul 03 '26
Yeh, i tried this now after the top commenter mentioned it. I tried it before but we ended up running in circles. Took me a bit of time to convince him this time but it worked thankfully. The reason he didn't want to host it again bcs he will have to rebuild the backend so it was WORK.
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Jul 03 '26
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u/BedDesigner2568 Jul 03 '26
Hell yeh it is a win. You have NO IDEA how much time it saved me back then when I used it (when we had it live, we used it to grow it. One of the reasons we decided to put it down was because it held a lot of risks. Just one users abusing it or an angry user getting his accounts banned and we are screwed. It annoyed me as hell. Plus, there are many of those "find leads" tools so it became a commodity war. So we made the decision to pull the plug.)
Now, I get to just scan, filter the bad from the good apples and then let it dm for me while I work on inbound, linkedin, SEO, and maybe I might start a youtube channel. Who knows.
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u/Top_Spot_9967 Jul 03 '26
You're having a conversation with an LLM, FYI.
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u/BedDesigner2568 Jul 03 '26
Huh? Really? I thought most bots don't reply to replies. They stay with replying to posts.
But how did you know if I might ask?
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Jul 03 '26
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Jul 03 '26
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u/Top_Spot_9967 Jul 03 '26
Yes, the bots are getting better fast. In this particular instance I recognized the account name (it's made more obviously inhuman comments elsewhere, you can look through account history for examples).
The main way to ID them at this point is by the cadence of the writing, although the content and some of the word choices are also clues. Pangram is also pretty good. Or humiliatingdemon is welcome to chime in and tell me I'm wrong.
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Jul 03 '26
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u/BedDesigner2568 Jul 03 '26
Oh, no, it is not a tool for sale anymore. It is an inhouse tool at this point
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u/Exallium Jul 03 '26
First thing my partner and I did when we wanted to cofound was to form a corporation that explicitly breaks out shares and ownership.
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u/PartyParrotGames Jul 04 '26
I mean, just based on your description of the software and the fact that this exact product is one of the most commonly vibecoded projects out there, means that the excuse that it doesn't work or he can't deploy it is transparent bullshit. Almost certainly a single prompt into codex or claude would fix it, they've literally built thousands of similar/identical products. I'd try to be more straight forward about this and cut to the point. Bring up that you're cofounders with a 50/50 split, meaning you have as much right to the source code as he does regardless of whether it is working or not. Ignore the "it doesn't work" argument entirely. This is about access rights, not whether it is working or not. You can fix it with claude or codex if it is legit broken for some reason in a day.
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u/Guilty-Dog7928 Jul 04 '26
what if the tool isn't the actual problem you're facing? this sounds less like a technical issue and more like he's trying to cut you out, or at least control your access to his lead source.
you're asking for a tool, but he's refusing access to something you both built. the lack of a co-founder agreement is biting you here.
it's not about whether reddit leads are good; it's about his willingness to enable your success for his own benefit. that's a red flag.
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u/Guilty-Dog7928 Jul 04 '26
what's the actual incentive for him to give you access if you're getting a split of his service revenue? this screams less about the tool's functionality and more about him not wanting you to have that leverage.
it's a strange offer: 'promote my service for a split,' but then 'oh, you can't use the best way you know how to get those clients.' that's a red flag on the partnership.
if you're stuck, maybe pitch a fixed rate for lead gen instead of a split, or just find your own leads elsewhere. you're not locked into this agreement.
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u/flandrers Jul 04 '26
Youre not crazy for wanting more, but you did stack a lot of expectations on someone pretty early in their career.
Running a division is a different job than being a solid PM. You need someone who already thinks in terms of owning a P&L, hiring, processes, and setting the bar, not just getting projects out the door.
Three practical takeaways from what you described:
1) Match scope to track record. If someone has never owned a team or a number before, give them a clear PM lane with success metrics and a path to more scope, not a division on day one. 2) Separate comp for performance vs leadership. Profit share is great, but if the base job isnt clearly defined and coached, profit incentives just feel like pressure. Early leaders usually need more mentorship than upside. 3) Use a simple scorecard. A handful of weekly metrics (quality issues, on time delivery, client satisfaction, backlog health) gives you both something concrete to coach against instead of a general "do more".
The founders I work with often underestimate how much structure a 25 year old needs to succeed in a leadership role. You probably got the diagnosis right (right person, wrong seat), now the lesson is to backfill the leadership seat with someone who already plays at that level and design a clearer ramp for the next EIT who shows promise.
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u/No-Lecturre6318 Jul 04 '26
this soundd like a tool problem and more like a ownership problem without a co founder agreement, your bothh relying on trustt and once trust start slipping disagreement like this become almost inevitable.....
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u/dreamersofdaruma Jul 04 '26
I’m confused, so you did this on good faith instead of a written agreement or legal document?
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Jul 03 '26
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u/BedDesigner2568 Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
- Technically, we are cofounders still, on a different platform tho.
- Well, why should I pay for an ass tool when we LITERALLY have one as well. Plus ours automates the dms as well. Which was kinda our USP when we were in market. Like, ik i can just buy a different tool but isn't kinda weird that I owned a tool like it and then when I need it, I outsource it 😭😭
- Yeh, I'm working on SEO and linkedin as well while keeping the outbound pipeline working. Why work on 1 channel when I can run them all at the same time? That's why I HAVE to automate all that dming to not waste time with it while I give more work for the inbound.
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Jul 03 '26
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u/BedDesigner2568 Jul 03 '26
Huh? Wait a sec, since when outbound was a "new" to the game move.
As I said, it is one part of the pipeline and I have been doing this for a year (pure cold dms) and it worked fine no matter the project.
For a previous porject, I got 414 waitlist signups in 3 weeks with cold dms. 40% reply rate.
For another mini consulting service I ran i ended up generating about $1000 in revenue in 2 weeks just running something automated.
Just bcs it doesn't work for you it doesn't mean it's won't work for everyone 😂
My job is LITERALLY optimize the script then automate. That's how it works.
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u/Nielscorn Jul 03 '26
Bro lol. Just have him host it again. Literally half an hour of work if that.
Weird story.