[edw519]

In spite of all the issues this case raises, only one popped out at me...

Team of 2: 1 programmer + 1 non-programmer = bad combination.

Maybe I'm a little old fashioned, but in a 2 person web startup, both should be programmers. I'm certainly not suggesting that this is what caused this situation, but it sure didn't help...

Since only one programmed, the probability of future difficulties increased dramatically, and once they did occur, he was the only one who could have dealt with them. A team approach probably would have been much better for technical problems, both preventing them and handling them.

[mikeryan]

This depends entirely on the business you are trying to build. Trying to generalize this into 2 people == 2 programmers == success isn't going to work in a vast majority of situations. Who's going to do business development if you have corporate clients? Who's going to do visual design?(programmers? Yikes!) Who's going to deal with investors and press?

This product didn't fail because there was only one programmer (heck I'm pretty sure digg started with obyrne and Kevin Rose). Fundable failed because it poorly managed itself.

[jacquesm]

Agreed, in general only one programmer is a mistake anyway. You need someone to keep you sharp and to bounce stuff of when you're stuck, or to work together on the tough bits to make sure they come out right (APIs and things like that).

[crucini]

I wouldn't endorse that.

A lot of successful partnerships had clear division of responsibility - often an "inside man" and an "outside man".

The inside man handles the employees, bookkeeping and systems. The outside man handles sales.

When two cooks are responsible for the same pot, there's trouble. And unwatched pots.

There are many variations on the good pattern - take McDonald's. Ray Kroc handled the franchisees and systems, while CEO Harry Sonneborn handled the money, real estata and investors.