Today I have found myself at a crossroads, first a little background.
I have been building a thing for about 18 months on and off. About 3 months ago I decided to partner up with someone and go all in - my partner is based on the other side of the globe, so as part of him coming on board we met and spent some time together - including pitching to VCs. As part of this partnership we bestowed the title of CTO on me and CEO on him. We have worked on perfecting our message etc and can really hit a good pitch, the problem comes from commitment - I am working on "thing" full time and also doing some freelance to pay the bills/feed my family. CEO can see this so advised me about 4 weeks ago he was going to quit his day job so that he could focus on "thing", however since that day there has been one excuse after another for not doing it. I have been responsible for all research, tech poc's, pitch deck, basically everything other than meeting and setting up pitches.
A few days ago we got a "no" from a seed VC - we had pitched them in November and had been through full DD and met all the partners, so I think we were kinda hopeful (but thats a post for another time). Now I was not involved in the "no" phone call so I am not certain what was said - however I have been told by CEO guy that "They don't like that the R&D will happen in <other country>". I trust CEO guy but I do suspect he is being given an excuse, I think the real reason is that the VC can see that the CEO guy doesn't have any passion for what we are doing - if we have a meeting then nothing happens (like a thank you email)
