Citing creative friction, Glints was worried that with growth, the sparks would lead to an explosion

Glints, a Singaporean jobs platform that targets fresh graduates, is losing one of its Co-founders.

Qin En Looi, the Chief Operating Officer, was let go at Glints, according to a company announcement made today.

The company cited “creative friction” for the move, and said the friction was key in the beginning to “create sparks and get the fire started”. As the company shifts its focus towards growth, the other Co-founders Oswald Yeo and Seah Ying Cong, were concerned the frictions had become too much.

According to the post:

“It was a hard decision, but we did it to enable the company to continue growing. But now that the company is growing, such sparks can lead to explosions, and we wanted to prevent that.”

Furthermore, referring to Looi, Glints said that it did not want to “hang on to team members for emotional reasons, longer than necessary.” The post stressed that the team tried to use both emotion and logic when making the decision.

Yeo, the CEO and Seah, the CTO, will continue to lead the company moving forward.

Much of the post takes the reader through the logic of the spit, which boils down to an acknowledgement. It boiled down to a realisation by Yeo and Seah that they did not believe the company was where it needed to be with Looi as the COO.

“We realized we have built something greater than any one individual, and did our best to make sure that the company will continue to succeed with or without any of us. We knew we just had to do what’s best for the employees, shareholders, and users,” reads the post.

The post acknowledges that Founder splits can spell doom for a startup but said the team has executed the decision smoother than expected. Only time will tell on that.

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Glints gained notoriety as a startup for dropping out of University and becoming a darling in the startup world.

The team was the youngest to graduate from the JFDI Accelerator program and raised an oversubscribed seed round in 2015. In September 2016, the company raised a US$2 million Series A round led by Golden Equator Capital and Gobi Partners.

In an effort to lighten what is a serious update, the team pretended they were writing a break-up letter. It works as a device to dull the blow, but while efforting at a joke the post did touch on issues of sexuality.

Looi did not respond to requests for comment.

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