Hey guys,
2.5 years ago a friend of mine and his university colleague had a great startup-idea and as I had just finished university and wanted a project to work on I said yes to starting a company with them. We decided on sharing equity equally (33% each).
Both of them have a Bachelors in E-Commerce and I have a Bachelors in Human-Computer-Interaction. So my part was concept and building of the app, while they would do the marketing and business stuff. Obviously I didnt know what I had gotten myself into. I had never built a large scale mobile application, just got out of university and had to teach myself front/backend while doing all the UX stuff as well.
In the past 2.5 years I've worked 40-60 hour weeks without salary while being financially supported by my parents (* since 4 months I am getting a 450€/month salary). The first 1.5 years I lived in a constant state of being overwhelmed with tasks, had burnout at least once and the relationship with my gf also suffered a lot as a result.
I am the full IT department of our startup (which is a mobile application). I'm working 5 different jobs (frontend, backend, devops, UX and a bit of design). Both of them do a job that could be done by 1 person part-time (one of them even recently admitted that he thinks their job could be done more efficiently by 1 person).
I always rationalized the extra work I did and said to myself: Once we get an investment, I can relax and my co-founders will have to work these long hours on marketing and business. Also without them I wouldn't even have this chance, because they came up with the original idea.
In recent time, I've learned that once the investment comes, working less hours or taking a year off even, will not be an option for me as the person who built the whole app (unless we find an investor who is ok with that). Also I've contributed so many new ideas to the app and basically did all of the UX, so I think them having had the original idea doesn't matter as much anymore now.
For more than a year now I feel that this is not fair anymore. And this feeling is killing me and taking away my motivation. I should also add that I don't really have any hard feelings for my co-founders. They aren't lazy or incompetent or unmotivated but there just wasn't as much work to do for them in the past years.
So my question is: What would you guys do in my situation? I just want things to be fair again between us. I hate this situation but I don't want the company to suffer or die because of it.
Thanks for your advice 
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