[partisan]

Somewhat similar stories. We partnered with a customer to form a company that would serve their market and we formed a JV to sell it to other companies in their space. They were the investor. We brought strong domain expertise and technical skills.

We provided a budget and timeline. They gave us half the budget we requested (amounting to half the people) and still had us stick to the original timeline. We invested our money to hire others because we believed in the product and potential. They subsequently cut our budget by almost half again and we painfully managed to maintain our team.

When we were ready to start selling the product, they effectively used the hostile contract we had agreed to. By threatening to dissolve the company, they pulled the business away from us while trying to coax us into being employees instead of owners. We didn't come to an agreement and after a long and difficult process, the whole thing ended, we laid our team off, the software never saw the light of day, and our collective time and money was wasted.

Lessons: - Listen to your gut. - A hostile contract lays out how someone can screw you over. Ignore it at your own peril. - Don't optimize prematurely.