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Comment by dangoldin | Hacker News Reader

There may be some legal action you could take - did you sign a contract with the developer? It won't solve your problem but it may get you some money back so you can divert it to some other development.

At the moment, I think you need to get an opinion from a real developer who can look at the code and the project design to see how long it would take to get it to the prototype stage. Depending on that I would try to get more funding in order to implement it while at the same time pursuing the legal route and trying to get your money back.

Also, learning Django may seem a little overwhelming at first but it's not too difficult - you can usually find the answers to any questions online.

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no project contract was signed - I was naive and had met her through a mutual friend, so I thought I could trust her and we could save some money.

There is a contract for the company set and equity structure.

Then write up a legal agreement that says she must be with the company for "x" years to earn the equity. Add in a little extra incentives for signing it ("Dual monitors!"). Once she signs it, fire her.

Regarding legal costs, I've used Pre-Paid Legal's Small Business Plan for a year. It costs $69/month and they do all sorts of stuff (and things like contract review are free). It isn't perfect but it has saved me the hassle of, "Should I sign this? Should I do it like this?" since I no longer have to worry about money when it comes to important legal decisions. URL: http://wserver0.prepaidlegal.com/legalzoom/SBpage2b.html

It doesn't matter if a legal contract was signed. As long as you undertook this venture with the agreement (verbal) that each person owns a part of the business, than it's the same as forming a legal partnership. Though, it wouldn't be useful to sue her unless you guys specifically agreed that she would finish the work, etc...

What legal action are you thinking he could take to force someone to work on a project? Even on consulting projects with defined statements of work and acceptance criteria, it is hard to recover up-front payments when projects go bad. This doesn't sound like a consulting gig; it sounds like an employment arrangement.

Also, bear in mind that if he structured the company as an LLC, there's no such thing as an equity-holding employee; she's a principal. He may not even be able to fire her or recover the equity, unless they're on good terms.

I can recover the extra 29%, as it was structured as an option.

The operating agreement should handle the case of a founder leaving the project. If that has not been specified it should default back to the state's default case.

In any case, I am just considering that an option to at least try to get the partner to finish the job or at least get some of the costs back.

The development must go on so I wouldn't say pursuing the legal route is the primary goal.

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