When I decided to leave my co-founder we asked advice from the local chambers of commerce (In the Netherlands they provide this). I remember feeling the same: surely all my effort put in must be worth something.<p>The advice was clear. The value of the company is based not the future expected cash from my work, not my effort. In small start-ups, a leaving co-founder often takes about as much value away (e.g. relationships) as he&#x2F;she thinks he&#x2F;she deserves.<p>Difficult to accept. In the end I told my co-founder that it was important for me to see some compensation for the things we had build up. I got a few percent of the next project he did, and walked away with 10-20k EUR.<p>Looking back, that was totally fair. It has been 2 years since, and the company is still going well and generating good cashflows. Most (all?) of the income now is due to his work, not mine. I&#x27;ve come to appreciate over time how we solved this.