| Get a copy of the book "Getting to Yes." It's a quick read and should help you figure out how to approach him. My guess is that since he is "salesy," he is the kind of person who values social capital and he thinks the way to get your respect is to prove he is good at code. One of the takeaways from negotiating studies is that value lies in your differences. If you were both good at the same thing, you wouldn't really need him as a cofounder. So, maybe get better at praising him for the things he is good at and making him feel like you are awed by the things he can do that you can't. Also, you need to make sure he understands the product better. His lack of understanding of the product is a serious issue, even if you can get him to stay out of the code base. Do try to approach this diplomatically, but also recognize that this is a make or break moment. Either the two of you will hash this out and your ability to communicate and your trust in each other will grow, making the company better in every way, or it will break you two up. And it is better to lose him early so you can go find someone else than to keep this limping along out of fear that any confrontation will be a dealbreaker. Cofounders need to be able to hash things out in a serious way. This is one of the reasons it gets compared a lot to marriage. If you can't "fight it out" so to speak and come up with a real solution, the two of you do not have what it takes to grow a company together. (You should try hard to not be too fighty about this, but you also need to make sure you aren't erring on the side of being too much of a conflict avoider. That is actually worse.) |