How have you successfully dealt with a lazy co-founder? I made a mistake with choosing my co-founder.

Question continued: He over promised and I've been stuck doing the majority of work and he's basically turned into an employee that is side tracked on other projects. Our startup has a lot of potential and is growing so, to just leave it isn't an option. What do I do?

I think you should just wait till either you get funding and your VC can help you deal with the situation, or fire him now and risk your startup failing.

Tell him things are not working out and figure out a plan to buy him out. In the future don't give away % so easily. Good luck

Sounds just like the situation I was in. I fired him about two months ago. NEVER have looked back. Best decision made. Good luck!

In the company I just launched with a partner, we outlined responsibilities in our operating agreement (at a high level - luckily our skill sets are divergent enough). We also included a clause that if a partner wasn't performing (or unable to perform due to outside life or other interests) for a 90 day period, one partner has the option to buy out the other.
I would say at the very least you need to sit down with this person and find out what's going on, and if you don't like what you hear (or there isn't a short term offer for improvement), then make them an offer for buy out.

Do others agree with you? Is it your perception? Prolly a learning thing, NEVER give a co-founder, or yourself all equity, you have to vest a percentage monthy. Scott Walker did a great talk about rhe 5 mistakes founders make, it was on this week in startups, Walker Law.
No I dont work there, just a junkie of the content.

Fire him. You are not getting the help you need and the situation is a huge distraction.

I'm in a similar situation. After writing a detailed business plan for three generations of my product and developing a full scale prototype, I brought on a co-founder who positioned himself as someone with programming skills and ties to investors. He turned out not to have either and a few months later he came into enough money where his motivation for my start-up could be defined more as a part-time hobby. He basically got lazy and has no sense of urgency. I eventually found an investor on my own, but am looking for an elegant solution to gradually push him out of the picture. I'm very confident the next round of funding will replace him, but watching him take credit for work I had to have outsourced is frustrating.

I was in a similar situation to you but the start-up was really new (1-2 months) so I simply dissolved and opened my own start-up as sole founder. Luckily not much IP or contacts was given away

It's unethical

In a similar situation,am thinking of continuing as sole founder and forgetting about him.