Hi. OP here. Learned some stuff, while founding and funding Mister Spex and several other startups in Berlin in the last 8 years. I'd like to invest my returns into other software and e-commerce entrepreneurs.
The failure rate at this kind of business model goes significantly down. Perhaps it also depends on how you describe a failure / success from an investor perspective.
I'm citing from W. Draper III's book, the Startup Game, "Tim Draper's First Six Investment": "... Tim intoned the name and and fate of each company. The first five, as I recall, were as follows: 'dead, dying, bankrupt, probably won't make it, and not so good'."
Investment No. 6 was "Home run!".
A VC (or LP of a VC) would describe a venture as a success, when it brings a multiple of its initial investment 10x, respectively a better IRR the LP would get in other markets (e. g. real estate, money lending).
They also would take the risk to invest in companies with zero cash flow and only a chance of having revenues at some point. So that's high risk, while comparing it with
targeting small companies with a positive cash flow and with none to small growth, prevented from growth by cash, network or experience of the founders, that would be a nice target for an investor who wants to see a ROI in the next five years and everything which comes on top makes his (paid) investment more valuable. It's more like a traditional investment approach. I don't only think there is a niche for this kind of investments I would even say that more "companies" / founders are fitting in that description than in the VC criteria.
With the words of my mentor at my first programming job:
Beginners guess programming is hard.
Advanced ones think programming is easy.
Experts know programming is hard.
"He actually threatens the company's success if I ever try to "sneak a move" on him when in reality his contributions are near 0 for product development as well as S&M."
1) S&M? Sales and Marketing?
At some point in the comments you mentioned that he's the financial guy in your team. I assume because you're writing this on hacker news you're the product guy. So I assume you're comparing his tasks with what you do day in day out.
I started a company with three other founders 6 years ago in Berlin. We had depressing times, but also great times. I left the company a year ago to join one of our VC and after 5 years I was the first to leave.
During those 5 years, I had moments were my co-founders didn't live up to my expectations. And the other way around with me. In retrospect I even think that two of us had a burn-out during the time (which results in exactly the behavior, described in the article you've mentioned) and because we had constantly re-invent our jobs.
And during the time were we re-invent our jobs, we're not that productive - or appear not productive - for some time. Give him that time, you'll need it at some point too.
2) You've started that company with him and you've raised funds. Congratulations, because at least your investors are thinking that you are a strong team - otherwise they wouldn't have invested in the first place.
From your ask and comments it sounds like your relation with your co-founder seams to be already hostile. For the sake of your company, you have to put aside feelings and put the interest of the company in front of everything. Which means your _ego_.
get some consultancy and figure out how to communicate on a professional level.
Someone mentioned to put up goals. I assume you have some, so try to reach them. If you don't need them then there is always the option to get another co-founder - maybe a more senior person - into your company.