These are both human-factors problems. There are people who address these things. In this situation there's no mechanism for accountability,i.e. a way to enforce the commitments the founders make to one another. Sweet persuasion and social pressure doesn't seem to work.
A neutral third party might have a better shot at assessing the situation -- what's needed is a clear grasp of whether it's time to cut one's losses and move on or if there's a path to rectify the stalemate.
It's a human-factors problem. Something is making the team unable to make a decision and hold to it.
My guess is that people fear to commit to a path -- endless noodling in search of a perfect solution is an efficient way to avoid the risk of actually doing something. "The perfect is the enemy of the good". If you build in in your head you are never confronted with the ways that it sucks.
If you're leading the group, the solution my be in your exerting firmer leadership, by setting a go/no go point for design decisions and shifting from planning to executing. Some kind of hell may break loose when you do it but this may tell you what the problem has been, e.g., group members who don't accept that there is a leader (you) etc. This is better than being in planning-loop hell.
I like tjpick's idea. I would amend shutter's comment to say "get your stuff out the door or fialure is certain".
Thanks, that's pretty helpful. There are people who are prone to arguing just for the sake of arguing, which is really detrimental to the group and they don't even know it.
