I found a co-founder through YC co-founder's matching. He had an existing app with stagnant growth and <$2k/mo profit.

He offered me a technical co-founder role to pivot the app for 30% equity (and for me to contribute $20k). We agreed that if the pivot didn't work, we'd explore other ideas.

I worked on the pivot + bug fixes for five months. The pivot was released to the app store, but existing users did not react to the pivot (but my bug fixes for payment failures reduce support tickets). We couldn't agree on how to spend my $20k investment for marketing, and he did not like the product changes I wanted to try, so he fired me.

He wants to continue to collect revenue and iterate on the code I wrote.

I told him I was revoking his use of my code and gave him 60 days to remove my code from his app, but he has failed to do so.

Wage theft and IP of technical co-founders is common in this industry. I don't want to take this as a "life lesson" as I never granted a license or ownership for my code. He can't buy me out at my freelancing rate.

What is the fair way to proceed?