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> People saying “but it's a one-person business, I can't trust it in the long term" are wrong. The problem is: people aren’t immortal. That one person could b

by louthy 2y ago

> People saying “but it's a one-person business, I can't trust it in the long term" are wrong. The problem is: people aren’t immortal. That one person could be dead tomorrow. So, you can’t trust any one person business in the long term, by definition.

jwr 2y ago
I have business continuity plans. And my point still stands: in practice, within a 5-year time horizon, you are much more likely to see a VC-funded or corporate-owned service shut down, than see a sustainable single-founder business disappear.
xp84 2y ago
Depends on what level of trust you need to have. Obviously you can’t even trust a multibillion-dollar public company like Google to keep maintaining a product forever, or even for a couple years. On the other hand, someone selling a stable piece of desktop software doesn’t even require a tremendous amount of trust. Just the trust not to ship malware or massive security holes. Even if they fully retire and delete the source code, your software will keep working. That’s more than I can say for Google reader, or the Humane AI Pin.
cfn 2y ago
When he dies, if not before, he or his family can sell the business. There's even websites/communities where you can post this kind of business for sale.
- chgs 2y ago
  The software will still work for years even if his who family is wiped out in a plane crash. A saas product will die when the credit card bounces a couple of months later.
  - hermitcrab 2y ago
    >even if his who[le] family is wiped out in a plane crash. Thanks for that cheery thought.
tonyedgecombe 2y ago
At age 59 there is a 5% chance he will die in the next year. What's the chance that your enterprise SaaS is going to get canned in that period?
- slyall 2y ago
  Actually less than 1.5% chance of dying (at least for American men, Brits would be similar). https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html

by louthy 2y ago

jwr 2y ago

I have business continuity plans. And my point still stands: in practice, within a 5-year time horizon, you are much more likely to see a VC-funded or corporate-owned service shut down, than see a sustainable single-founder business disappear.

xp84 2y ago

Depends on what level of trust you need to have. Obviously you can’t even trust a multibillion-dollar public company like Google to keep maintaining a product forever, or even for a couple years. On the other hand, someone selling a stable piece of desktop software doesn’t even require a tremendous amount of trust. Just the trust not to ship malware or massive security holes. Even if they fully retire and delete the source code, your software will keep working. That’s more than I can say for Google reader, or the Humane AI Pin.

cfn 2y ago

When he dies, if not before, he or his family can sell the business. There's even websites/communities where you can post this kind of business for sale.

chgs 2y ago
The software will still work for years even if his who family is wiped out in a plane crash. A saas product will die when the credit card bounces a couple of months later.
- hermitcrab 2y ago
  >even if his who[le] family is wiped out in a plane crash. Thanks for that cheery thought.

tonyedgecombe 2y ago

At age 59 there is a 5% chance he will die in the next year. What's the chance that your enterprise SaaS is going to get canned in that period?

slyall 2y ago
Actually less than 1.5% chance of dying (at least for American men, Brits would be similar). https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html