Ghosted on Launch Night: What Losing Our Dev Taught Me About Grit, Growth, and Who Really Shows Up

He left.

No warning. No message. Just silence.

And in that silence, the weight of an entire startup crashed onto my chest. Because when you’re building something from scratch, trust isn’t optional—it’s everything. And when that trust evaporates the night before launch? You don’t have time to grieve.

You build anyway.

Here’s what happened next.

The 24 hours before launch were exactly what you’d expect from a startup sprinting toward something it believes in: chaos, adrenaline, ambition. Cathy and I were pushing growth, hard. The rest of our team was doing everything they could to pull it all together. It wasn’t polished, it wasn’t perfect, but it was close.

The stakes were high. We weren’t just pushing just another product—we were pushing a dream. A vision we had poured ourselves into for the past year. Personally, this launch meant everything to me. I’d built things before, but this? This was the one that hit differently. It was meaningful, it was layered, and it had potential that reached far beyond a product roadmap.

Our dev had been with us through the grind from our MVP to bring our newest version to life. He’d helped build the latest version of the product. He had ideas. He was excited. Just weeks before, he was pitching voice features and talking about v2 like it was already alive. We noticed his stress levels creeping, sure. But we chalked it up to pre-launch nerves. We allhad them.

Then came the meeting.

The day before launch, something felt off. Our payment links weren’t generating properly. He seemed more pressed than usual. The tone had shifted. His messages were short. We chalked it up to pressure—because launch is always messy. But when we hopped on the call, it was different.

He was short with us, visibly stressed, and that’s when he dropped the bomb: the product wasn’t finished. Not even close. He positioned as—"this product is huge"—but all I could think was, why are we finding this out less than three hours before launch? Why didn’t we know this weeks ago? Why didn’t he speak up?

Was I short and snippy on that call? Yeah, likely. But I was staring down the barrel of a launch we’d worked months toward, only to have the ground shift beneath our feet at the last second because he decided not to say anything before this.

That meeting? It was the same one where he then proceeded to tell us the product wasn’t finished. Where he minimized everything we had built by blaming the scope, not his silence. That was the meeting where, after dropping the bomb, he said he didn’t want equity anymore.

We hadn’t heard anything from him in the hours after that, so we decided to call a mandatory meeting. said he no longer wanted equity. That was a blow. But what made it okay—at least for a second—was his promise: “Don’t worry. I won’t leave you stranded.”

We believed him.

And then after that meeting? 

He was gone.

No message. No warning. No follow-up. He missed the next meeting. And then every meeting after that. We messaged. We called. Silence.

He ghosted us.

In the middle of a launch.

A grown man ghosted his responsibilities, his team, his commitment. Just vanished.

At first, I wasn’t even angry. I was numb. I remember staring at the screen in disbelief. Not because I didn’t think something like this could happen—but because I couldn’t believe someone would actually do it. And more than that—I worried about Cathy.

This was her first startup. Her first CEO role. If she was going to hit all the firsts, she might as well do it big—but not like this. Not by getting blindsided by someone who made a promise and bailed. I couldn’t believe someone could do that to a team, to a cofounder, to a company. And especially to someone who had shown up every day ready to lead with integrity and guts.

I worried how this would affect her. Would it make her jaded? Would it crush that early-stage fire? Would it shake her belief in people?

It didn’t.

She stood taller. Which only made what he did sting even more.

This wasn’t a freelance gig. This wasn’t a passion project. This was a startup. A real business. A real team. And for him to reduce it to something he could just walk away from—that hurt.

We didn’t lose the code. Thank god. But what we lost was deeper: momentum, trust, belief. The emotional toll of someone abandoning ship at the very moment you need them the most? That’s something you don’t forget.

But we didn’t stop.

We couldn’t.

And this is where everything shifted.

Cathy showed up. Fully. With more maturity than most people twice her age. A first-time founder who didn’t flinch. When a man in his mid-30s ghosted a team on the edge of launch, it was a 24-year-old first-time founder who stood up, took the wheel, and carried the company across the line. That’s not something you forget. That’s not something you overlook. That’s when you know who’s really built for this. I’ve built with a lot of people, but this? This solidified it. Cathy isn’t just a good partner—she’s the kind of founder you’d go to war with.

We problem-solved. We pivoted. We held things together with duct tape and belief. And somehow, we pulled off the launch. No one outside the team knew what had gone down behind the curtain. We had disaster-proofed our build. We missed capitalizing on a 100K-views viral post—but we still got to market. And that? That was a win.

The adrenaline kept me from feeling much of anything in the moment. But now, in the quiet, it’s starting to hit. The emotional weight. The betrayal. The exhaustion.

And weirdly? The clarity.

There were red flags. We just didn’t want to see them.

We knew he'd mentioned being burned by previous teams or saying things hadn't worked out elsewhere. We should’ve asked more questions. Dug deeper. We should’ve taken those remarks as a signal to slow down and vet properly. But we wanted to believe this would be different. That this would be the place he found his fit.

We were wrong.

We should’ve run deeper reference checks. We should’ve tested more deeply. We should’ve followed our own hiring frameworks we’d integrated into Kaie’s own algorithm. We didn’t. We trusted. And it cost us.

Now? We don’t make that mistake again.

We trust slower. We vet harder. We prioritize values, character, and collaboration just as much as technical ability. Because someone’s code won’t matter if they disappear the night before launch.

And here’s the strange part—this didn’t make me lose trust in people.

It made me believe in people more.

Because when someone failed us so deeply, someone else rose. Cathy stood up in ways that humbled me. Her strength rebuilt something in me. She made me believe, once again, that great partners do exist. That belief matters. That showing up when it’s hard is what separates the real ones from the rest.

That’s what this whole thing taught me.

That no one person makes or breaks a company. That great teams can survive almost anything. That trust, once broken, changes everything—but it also teaches you how to build better.

And more than anything? That Cathy was the best decision I’ve ever made as a founder. Period.

o other founders: don’t just test for skill—test for strength. Test for communication. Test for commitment. Don’t fall for potential. Bet on people who show up.

To that dev? I still don’t have much to say.

You had options. We would’ve worked with you. We could’ve cut scope. We could’ve delayed. But you chose silence. And by calling this a “project,” you minimized something we all gave everything to.

That’s not just disappointing—it’s disrespectful.

But we kept going.

We shipped.

We proved we could take a punch and keep building.

And if you’re reading this and going through something similar, know this: you’re not alone. It feels like hell. It feels personal. But it’s survivable.

You’ll adapt. You’ll rebuild. And if you’ve got the right people beside you, you’ll be stronger than you were before.

No one can take away what you’ve built if you keep showing up.

And if you truly believe in what you’re building—nothing can stop you.