Hey Luca, thanks for sharing this, I imagine it’s a tough thing to discuss publicly, and I haven’t seen many founders write this openly about buying out a co-founder.
One question I had: you mentioned Mattia gradually took on more product work, even though that was originally your lane. Did you ever consider doing the reverse and taking on more of the marketing/growth work when his bandwidth was limited? Curious what prevented that from working in practice.
Yes, I started doing marketing myself. I nurtured my personal Threads account, developed free tools, AI agent skills, Reddit, and other stuff. Yet it was very fair from Mattia to reach out saying that it wasn’t sustainable any more for him to do not dedicate enough time to BlackTwist.
It's always a builder buying out a marketer, because as soon as you see some money, the alarm goes off in your head thinking you will become a millioniare over night, but before that, let throw our cofounder under the bus instead of growing together.
First of all, it was Mattia (my-cofounder) to reach out saying he couldn't work on the project anymore.
The alternatives were not very interesting: let the product be as it was (basically die on its own), sell the entire product. After 2 years, I didn't want an exit.
Secondly, I don't define myself as a tech founder, since I've been building and marketing 6 SaaS products in the past completely alone, and I know that I'll not become a millionaire without hard work, and determination. All things I've put into all my products.
Thanks for your comment, but I think you're lacking a bit of context and perspective.
Thanks for sharing, Luca! I appreciate your honesty and I must admit this one issue of work schedule/load incompatibility is something I probably have never thought about. And good luck to both of you.
The interesting part isn’t really the buyout — it’s what you said about losing the second opinion on the decisions you’re unsure about.
Now that you’re fully solo, I’m curious how you’ll distinguish between decisions that simply need to be made quickly and decisions where you actually need another independent view.
Hey Luca, thanks for sharing this, I imagine it’s a tough thing to discuss publicly, and I haven’t seen many founders write this openly about buying out a co-founder.
One question I had: you mentioned Mattia gradually took on more product work, even though that was originally your lane. Did you ever consider doing the reverse and taking on more of the marketing/growth work when his bandwidth was limited? Curious what prevented that from working in practice.
Hey Sven! Good question.
Yes, I started doing marketing myself. I nurtured my personal Threads account, developed free tools, AI agent skills, Reddit, and other stuff. Yet it was very fair from Mattia to reach out saying that it wasn’t sustainable any more for him to do not dedicate enough time to BlackTwist.
It's always a builder buying out a marketer, because as soon as you see some money, the alarm goes off in your head thinking you will become a millioniare over night, but before that, let throw our cofounder under the bus instead of growing together.
Simple human greed, nothing else...
I disagree.
First of all, it was Mattia (my-cofounder) to reach out saying he couldn't work on the project anymore.
The alternatives were not very interesting: let the product be as it was (basically die on its own), sell the entire product. After 2 years, I didn't want an exit.
Secondly, I don't define myself as a tech founder, since I've been building and marketing 6 SaaS products in the past completely alone, and I know that I'll not become a millionaire without hard work, and determination. All things I've put into all my products.
Thanks for your comment, but I think you're lacking a bit of context and perspective.
Thanks for sharing, Luca! I appreciate your honesty and I must admit this one issue of work schedule/load incompatibility is something I probably have never thought about. And good luck to both of you.
Thanks Dmytro!
Working in the side is hard, and it is not always compatible with everyone I guess.
It was very honest and fair from Mattia to raise it and find an agreement on.
The interesting part isn’t really the buyout — it’s what you said about losing the second opinion on the decisions you’re unsure about.
Now that you’re fully solo, I’m curious how you’ll distinguish between decisions that simply need to be made quickly and decisions where you actually need another independent view.