My co-founder is a genius coder and that's the fkn problem

Find a better co-founder.

These are my 2 cents:

1. You both have complementary and exhaustive skills (+ that's a plus point for you guys as a company)
2. Out of the two of you, he's the one who can handle tech better (perhaps even the 'whims' of the compiler when it refuses to run). Meanwhile you're the one who can handle people better (i.e. the whims of the clients, employees, or investors)
3. Since things have escalated to the point that you have to make an anonymous post here, you need to take a judgement call. Is he a good enough friend to you? Can he be trusted?
4. You should confront him in a 'non-accusatory' manner, not because it's professional and kind, but it is found to be the most efficient (I read that somewhere, unable to recall the source). If he says you don't "know tech", ask him nicely the things you genuinely think you should know about. No harm in learning while also de-escalating.
5. From there, you can make up your mind whether this person is worthy of (in terms of skills and trustworthiness) spending time towards, so as to get him driven the same way as him. Try to drive him through things that he cares about. It could be the impact. It could be competitiveness (others have already made this product). It could even be money or fame. But at least try to speak to him in his own language for once. Clichéd as it may sound, try to read more about 'influencing people'.
6. The reason why I think the above can be helpful is because a. If he gets convinced, you get back an amazingly skilled founder ; b. If he doesn't change, at least you refine your people skills that already seem to be your greatest assets and the split post that will not be hostile (hopefully no legal disputes for revenge later)

From what I understand, he is a coder and not a great Software Engineer.. building 80% of system will take only 20% of the time and is generally not that difficult.. it’s the last 20% which takes hard work, proper engineering skills.. and looks like that is where he is stuck.. Make him understand or find different co-founder

Get a kick ass intern to show him he's slacking , I can recommend a colleague. Brilliant coder, doesn't game and coders are jealous when it comes to their craft. Show him a person who is half as good as him and gets shit done without being a diva about it

As a founder myself, who fired the technical co-founder, here's my take.

1. As you've mentioned, he is an amazing coder: Losing him just like that will affect the product development and investor/customer confidence.

2. Whether the co-founder is a friend: If yes, confront him on a serious note, only if he's a friend you can be comfortable losing.

3. If no, to the above point: Try adjusting the work and general workflow for the team to accommodate his night work while you handle the day time tasks and testing during the day.

4. You have product that people are ready to pay for: The fact that people are ready to pay for your product means you might actually be solving a valid problem and creating value. First rule of biz, without customers the startup is worthless.

5. The outside push: Try conveying whatever you wrote here, though an investor/stakeholder.

Till you figure out the jugaad, make sure he doesn't leave. From what you've written, he's the perfect resource for a high-growth startup with deep pockets.

Hire engineers who can work on pipelines/planned features and let the genius work on new ideas.

He is artist. Not engineer. Mostly he won't like to be engineer.

Coding is like writing a book, there will be writer's block. You need to separate tasks into engineering and arts, to get things moving.

He may not know this, but if you understand this his life will be easy, & yours too..

Okay, this is going to be a long post but I’m going to try and reply to most of your concerns in depth. So bear with me.

1. Your co-founder likely suffers from ADHD. Source: Me.

I’m a Lead Dev who has autism and suffers from ADHD. Not the self-diagnosed attention-seeking kind you may come across frequently on social media, I’ve actually been diagnosed by a multiple, qualified professionals and I’m on medication for the same.

When you described your co-founder’s behaviour, you were basically describing me. The nonchalant attitude towards the business side of things, the moodiness, the sudden bursts of productivity where he codes like the genius hacker breaking into NSA servers in Hollywood movies followed by long periods where he ignores the work and would rather play games online, the bulk deployment instead of small incremental releases…every single behaviour feels like he is me in an alternate universe.

This behaviour needs two primary things to get a hold of -
Firstly, the treatment/medication. That is absolutely necessary for the emotional regulation. Without that, it is going to be REALLY tough to deal with and it gets worse as you get older and I do not say this lightly. I know him seeking professional help is not in your control but you’re his co-founder and what direction your business, and therefore, your life takes is heavily dependent on him.

So you’re gonna have to take a call if you want to persist with him or if you wanna cut your losses early and move on. You’ve started a business with him at a young age and so I assume you’re close friends. Speak to him as his friend and not his business partner when you talk about this.

I cannot emphasise how crucial this will be for your business. It may not fail if you don’t do it but if he is as talented as you say he is, it can be the difference between you guys making it really big or being just another startup.

Coming to the second requirement, he needs oversight. At least until he has a grip on his emotional regulation and the spikes and drops in productivity. He being the co-founder means he is basically operating without any accountability at the moment. He needs someone to hold him accountable, someone who uses the stick instead of the carrot when necessary. Whether that is an investor, or a third co-founder who has no history with him, or someone along similar lines. He may not respect your authority because you basically have no authority over him, you’re equals.

Basically, what I’m saying is he may be the CTO but he needs a CEO who he is still answerable to. He may not like it and may even show his displeasure aggressively, but he’ll toe the line when the business starts doing well and the money starts rolling in.

Just ensure the third person doesn’t end up being the Sean Parker to your Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg regen from The Social Network.

2. Regarding the problem about introducing bugs due to the big releases, the technical solution to that is to build a CI/CD pipeline with a staging or pre-release environment before going to production, followed by end-to-end testing. Hire someone to do it if he can’t be bothered to do it. It can be a consultant on a short term contract with the provision to provide upgrades/fixes at fixed intervals, or a full time employee if you have the budget.

I know you’re a startup and the goal is to ship fast but shipping fast means shipping regularly and you’re obviously not doing that at the moment.

3. As for handling conflict when these things come up, my approach to these situations is the same as my approach towards building software. And software is driven by data, that is why we have metrics.

If I’m in your shoes and he tells me “You don’t understand tech enough”, my response would be something like:

“Fair enough. I may not know tech enough, but I understand the business and I understand people. Especially the people who are paying us, our clients, because I deal with them.

The clients are unhappy with the features marked as “nearly done” but not shipped for long periods. If they’re nearly done, they expect to have it sometime soon after the communication. Otherwise it says that either it’s not nearly done or we’re prioritising something else instead of wrapping them up. If it’s the latter, it needs to be communicated to them with a valid justification for the delay to temper their expectations. If it’s the former, we need to provide more accurate, realistic updates instead saying they’re nearly done. It’s a matter of trust and as a startup, that is paramount.

They are also particularly unhappy with the consistent bugs showing up in the new releases. Here’s all the data for it, the communication, the emails, etc.

Since you feel this is a “tech problem” that is beyond me rather than a problem with the way we’re doing things, what’s the technical solution to it? I hope you have a plan to tackle this since you’re the tech wiz and have a better understanding of it. I’d also like for us to take some time out for a post-mortem once the solution is in place, so I can figure how to handle the business end of it with the clients and keep our communication with them as transparent as possible.”

Whether he responds positively or negatively to this should tell you whether he is mature enough to run a business, and if it’s worth your time and effort to push ahead with this, or if he’s a wild card who’ll rage quit in a couple of years because he can’t have things his way and you’ll have to start from scratch with someone else.

You guys are 23
I also had same issue with my coding skills few years ago and I realise that i need to learn a lot’s of things
But you need to understand that to build a tech you need a software engineer not a coder

You can solve this issue by having a accountability to other

Try to implement a scrum model

1. What went well

2. What didn’t went well

3. What needs to improve ( this is fucking important)

Keep track of it, this brings some sort of discipline

The day when what went well are more than rest of two you will feel good

If he is not listening you bring /hire another guy who holds accountability for both of you (btw that’s how concept of middleman came :) )

Trust me discipline and consistency is much important that anything

Also there is a difference in consistency and flexibility. Working 2 hours daily is much better than working 20 hours 2 days in a week

I think he would be reading this post (very specific details mentioned) , he will get back to you with better terms .