A topic which comes up periodically in the running-small-Internet-businesses community: what do you do in terms of contingency planning around a bus factor of one?
The brief version of my answer, in an HN comment: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=219086…
Briefer version: term life insurance.
The brief version of my answer, in an HN comment: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=219086…
Briefer version: term life insurance.
Term life insurance is inexpensive, extremely easy to procure (relative to a full business succession plan), and handily protects the people who have the most to lose and the worst ability to independently plan for it if you were to pass away suddenly, which is your heirs.
The worst case scenario for e.g. customers is (for typical values of the types of businesses run by solo operators) inconvenience which they're set up to absorb and which they already have ability to mitigate the risk, in the ordinary course.
(e.g. If you suddenly stop answering your emails and the customers can't figure out why service on your SaaS product is degrading they have a really simple option which is already priced into everyone's expectations and which requires no advance negotiation: call up their bank.)
"But what if they had critical data on your system and/or their business processes were totally dependent on it."
Then they were paying you enough money to have you have a formal Business Continuity Plan which was annexed to the bespoke contract you negotiated, right.
Then they were paying you enough money to have you have a formal Business Continuity Plan which was annexed to the bespoke contract you negotiated, right.
Many more customers, typically of the B2C variety, perceive that they are somehow owed that Business Continuity Plan than have specifically negotiated and paid for it, and some of them are going to discover that they did not have it to their inevitable displeasure.
There are solo-operated businesses which totally justify having one of those, by the way, but they’re non-trivial artifacts which (if you’re doing them right) are combination business, technical, and estate planning exercises.
Professional labor costs what it costs. Term life insurance is, in most cases, a cheap, adequate substitute.
Sidenote: interesting how the widespread availability of a B2C financial product solves a very real, very acute need for a relatively narrow class of extremely specialized professional/business owner at 5% or less of the cost of a bespoke solution.
