What keeps you from beginning your Start Up?
iigs: Is it influence, decision making, and direction setting? Well, we kinda fall down there. Many cooks in this kitchen, and most have greater influence than is available to him. His voice is heard of course, and great ideas are easy to spot no matter who they come from, but if he expects his voice to win out every time I can't provide any assurances that it will be so.That's probably the biggest one, if I had to guess. I don't know what this individual's motivations are, but if he has his heart set on something you're best not to pull a subtly different direction, the impedance match will eventually cause something to give, and maybe not on the best terms.Now, maybe you can flip this from a specific role to a personnel management pattern.You've clearly found someone who has been a valuable member of your team. You might believe that some of the things that would make someone a good entrepreneur would make them a good employee for your company, and from the outside, at least, that seems pretty sane. Someone who is intelligent, has drive, and is interested in all aspects of the business seems like the kind of person you'd want to have working for you.If you know you can't hold on to good people like this forever, maybe you could build a culture of growing people up and out. I don't think it would take a whole lot -- open, "face-up" handling of the business in the presence of your employees, a positive attitude towards contractors, mentoring and maintaining good relationships after they've left, and the opportunity to come back should the gig not work out and you have a position available, are all non-cash things that seem to basically be heresy to the standard beige manager, and I can't for the life of me figure out why. They also are generally things that you can do toward the end of the employee relationship where you appear to be now.Don't throw him out of the nest, of course, but definitely encourage him to spread his wings. Think of it as putting a little "Sponsored By: OurCo, Inc" on his brain. He'll either fail at his task and possibly come back as a better, more mature employee, or he'll soar, and he'll be thinking of your company in a positive light when he is networking like no tomorrow. Sounds like a win for you either way. :)