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Contingency plan
As a business owner myself, I have to think about what will happen if something happens to me. Short of the famous bus hitting me, there's a lot of things that could happen; hospitalization, memory loss, incapacitation, or (let's go out on a limb here) imprisonment. While I don't plan on all of these things to happen (least of all the imprisonment), these things could theoretically happen.
I'm lucky enough to have a wife and very caring parents around, who'd gladly jump in would anything happen to be, they wouldn't know what to do in that. I'm already planning to write a lengthy document which lays out what to do and everything, including passwords, etc. and put it in a fireproof safe. But I'm wondering; is there anything else I could do?
Any advice from business owners or people that have had the (unfortunate) experience of someone being unable to continue running their business (for whatever reason) is really appreciated.
Note: this is not an invitation to attack one-man-shows!
Comments
Thought you'd quit the VPS business :-P
Banning public transportation doesn't seem like a plan, though.
Don't think you have trams in Cumbria, do you live close to the Sellafield nuke plant? Seems like your grey matter is no doing too well.
I've been down that road with a family member and can say that the area you really need to plan for, is when your mental capabilities start failing (not just memory loss).
This is also going to be the most difficult one to plan for as you could end up undoing everything you put in place while thinking you don't need it.
Personally I prefer imprisonment to death, but it depends who is the guardian and cell-mates, even so, if I dont like the latter, i can always misbehave and be isolated. Even more, you can kill yourself in prison if it appears death is better at almost any time. Memory loss happens to me daily, so, after a while, you learn to live with it.
As for what you can do, well, it depends. I have life insurance, i leave a bit of housing and land after me, so, in that regard, things are pretty ok, as a business owner, the business is not registered in my name and if the "owner" dies, I will inherit it.
Then, regarding the technical aspects, you can never plan that part. First, because things constantly change, especially in this area, second, because you cannot think of everything. It is safe to assume, that, no matter what you do, it is likely that your small business will die with you and stop worry. You will be dead or a vegetable, why would you worry, except about the people you leave behind? If you didnt, go now and get life insurance. It may not be much, but for me it is a consolation, not everything will be for the worse, you know, somebody's gonna pay for my death or incapacitation! Literally.
May have been the previous owner of DDoSVPS.co, ....maybe I'm loosing it. Time to start writing the contingency plan too.
I sit home all day.
Fap, watch movies, lurk numerous forums & run a number of "questionable" sites.Chances of me dieing are next to nil, unless all those cheeseburgers suddenly give me a heart attack.
In a serious perspective, you shouldn't really (imho) plan for what happens to your ventures if something were to affect you, but instead, do it with a totally different system. I myself deploy some projects and have a person I trust, whom has access to "everything", and if something were to happen to me for hours, days, weeks, etc.. that person could take over until I return - ofc, a serious "security" liability, but if you know the person irl, know them well enough, have worked with them for a few years and they trust you as much as you trust them, then it should be fine.
It would have to be someone who you can put all your trust into and someone who you know irl. The person would also have to have the same skill-set as you to do the required tasks should you vanish for a period of time.
I personally prefer this system because unlike the "planning if a bus hits me" system, it is much more organized and has no end-user impact.
What about chances of SWAT teams busting your front door?
They'll have to find me first
Why do you need that plan?
To leave them your fortune, or to have someone running your business?
If it's the second option - then I would leave it to a friend who knows a lot about your business - or to the best employee.
I would not ask my family, who probably knows 0 about my business, to learn and run it.
Previous owner of DotVPS was Aussie? Josh?
Trusted friend has server, email, forums and access to money, however the only thing that will break if I die is customer support. Bills are on paypal subscription, and enough funds to cover paypal disputes from unhappy clients!
I don't run anything as critical as a VPS host, but something along those lines.
I was thinking of something similar the other day. Perhaps a website which would send you an email every 2 months with a link, you need to click that link to indicate that you're "OKAY". If not the website checks again a couple of times and then finally sends all the stuff that might help your family automatically.
I could make it but then, there's this thing called privacy lol.
http://deathswitch.com/
@Jack When life gives you lemons, use them, or vice versa.
/saw your signature
I remembered something about Jack or the previous owner being in the North West, thought it was Cumbria, but obviously not....
You can buy insurance policies for just this situation. It's called key man/person insurance. It may not help your customers, but it will help your family/dependents.
You are complaining about someone else's grey matter? You, sir, need to go see a doctor.
I've got that taken care of. My wife will be fine financially if the worst would happen to me.
It's a fair question: why would I worry? Then again, I value my customers and I'd love someone to give Jon a call in case something would happen to me. I mean, my wife knows where I work and what I do, so she'd call the office. But she wouldn't know how to inform my customers.. It's a matter of courtesy, I guess.
Man, I would love a cheeseburger right now ;-) Think I'll make some later this week. Anyway, thanks for getting me hungry,
Hmm, that's a good thought as well. It would definitely decrease the size of the document I'd have to write. I currently don't have a business partner, though, and because I'm not actively getting new customers, I'm not sure what interest I would be to a possible partner. It is something to think about, though.
It's more or less someone that could either sell it, or shut it down responsibly. I am talking worst-case scenario here; I don't plan on anything happening to me.
About that fortune, well, I'm still working on that ;-)
Simple. Put me on your will!
I imagine most people on LET have a contingency plan
Someone needs to run dd tests all day
Business wise I have all passwords and information stored with a person I trust and are able to pick up if something happens to me.
Anything outside of business my wife can handle (I hope).
British Government, Letters of Last Resort: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort
There is a feature for this on Google Accounts. If you don't sign in over the last x months you can have it email your family all your account data and then delete the account forever.
if i were on your shoes, maybe i will start teaching my wife to learn my business
Lets say i have a system that i keep all passwords and encryption keys and so on. I have a "business partner" who would be capable of runing things without me and would be able to hire someone to do the dev work that i currently do. My significate other and a very trusted family memeber have 1 half of the password needed to unlock the ssh key for to access that server.