At the beginning of the year I co-founded a startup. Not sounded pretentious but without me they would have gotten to where they were or formed the incredible team they have formed. The co-founder literally knew nothing about startups. He had this idea for ages but it was me who brought it to fruition.
This startup is literally what this industry has been yearning for. Thousands have signed up. You know how 9/10 startups fail, well this won’t, because there are literally no competitors and no problems. They have an incredible team, sponsors, investors and a massive waitlist. They will seriously be valued at billions.
Anyway, after working on it for 6 months they fired me. The co-founder saw me as a threat to his CEO position. Anyway, we got a lawyer on the team a few days before I got fired so there was no employee agreement. We verabally agreed on 20% equity each but when I got fired they removed me from all sites, profiles and I won’t get any compensation or recognition in the project. As if I never worked there.
They are really starting to grow and expand. I’m really upset because this was mainly my hard work. And they won’t reply to my emails or anything. I don’t have proof of working there anymore because the computer guy wiped all my files where I gathered all this evidence.
It’s been 3 months since I haven’t worked there. It was remote so all online.
I’m really upset because this could have been my breakthrough as an entrepreneur. How do I get over this?
Emails, text messages and phone record would be helpful. Plus anything that you couldn’t possibly know without having worked there. Sure you could find a lawyer who would loooove to do this pro bono. Sounds like the Facebook founder lawsuits.
I don’t have enough money to. And I’m not entilted to anything I guess because I didn’t sign the employee agreement in time. I was literally going to send it to them before they fired me.
But you have it right? That’s proof. Were you a paid employee? A lawyer may do it pro bono where they don’t ask for payment until you get paid. It will be a percentage of whatever you win.
I lost all evidence of emails and stuff when the computer guy wiped my computer without asking me…so no I don’t have anything now And all our discussion was on Slack so when they deleted my account I can’t get access to it.
Entrepreneurs call this sort of thing “experience”.
And the notion that it was you who brought this to fruition having no concept whatsoever of the agreements and organization necessary to make an ice cream stand partnership survive much less a billion dollar company is, itself, telling.
How do you get over it? Learn, move on and plan to buy them out some day.
No, that’s why I brought on a lawyer. I know there were agreements that were needed to be drafted but the day I got sent the agreement was the day I was fired. @JustOneDad
By any chance, was the company called “Grey Matter Technologies”? I suggest you get involved in the meth business, I hear it pays well.
But in all seriousness, this is a question for your lawyer to handle, not some random people on the Internet.
Next time you have a start up, you need to document everything on your own in the beginning and never ever verbally agree to anything. Everything must be written up, by a lawyer. You need to protect yourself and be prepared that anyone will screw you over, push you out, fire you, and wipe out your existence and involvement with projects like these people just did to you. If you don’t have any proof that you ever worked there and have no evidence of any agreements or anything, then I don’t know what a lawyer can do for you at this point. I think you might just have to start something else and be more prepared next time.
And all our discussion was on Slack so when they deleted my account I can’t get access to it.