
Ask HN: Help Reassure SaaS Clients as Solo Founder - saas_q
Hi HN, I&#x27;m a solo founder in the early stages of bootstrapping a SaaS company where my product, if adopted by a company, becomes a critical part of their daily workflow.<p>Understandably, one of the most common push backs I get from potential customers is &quot;what happens when you get hit by a bus&quot;.  So far I don&#x27;t have a great answer for them and I&#x27;d love to hear how others have overcome this sales hurdle.<p>Obviously finding a co-founder or getting to the point where I can hire someone else is ideal, but neither of those look likely to happen in the near future.  I can also offer to give them access to the AWS account their service is hosted under, but these clients generally don&#x27;t have tech saavy employees and so I&#x27;m not sure how useful that would be to them (of course they can hire someone to help, but that might take them days or weeks).<p>I&#x27;ll be extremely grateful for any ideas or advice anyone can give me.
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mindcrime
I'm in a similar situation, and it occurs to me that this is a good question.
For our thing, part of the answer is that the code itself is all Open Source,
which partly mitigates the "bus factor" risk, in that they could always pay
somebody else to stand up an environment running the system, or do it
themselves.

If you don't want to make things OSS, you could engage with a 3rd party "code
escrow" firm that would maintain the code securely and only release it to the
customer in defined circumstances (eg, if you die, or the company closes down,
etc.)

One other might be partnering with a VAR outfit or an outsourced help-
desk/support firm to provide services and support that are independent of your
physical presence.

~~~
saas_q
> part of the answer is that the code itself is all Open Source

I'm actually fortunate to be in the same situation. Someone suggested keeping
an up to date Docker or VM image including their data that the client can
download and self-host if need be. Seems worth investigating.

~~~
new_guy
If you give them access to your code what's to stop them kicking you to the
curb and taking it for themselves? Free code and no need to pay you.

The fact that you're a sole founder should be zero issue with clients, frankly
it's none of their concern at all how your company is structured.

The fact that they think it is their concern leads me to believe your
presenting yourself as a one man band as opposed to a professional company
which is something you can control.

~~~
mindcrime
I mean, I would not necessarily argue that one _must_ volunteer that they are
a one person shop. But if, for the sake of argument, a prospect flat out asks,
what are you going to do? Lie? Personally I would not, as I think dishonesty
of that sort (or really of any sort) is a bad basis for any kind of business
relationship.

OTOH, if you do own up to being a one person (or otherwise very small) shop,
you also have the opportunity to "own it" and turn that to your advantage.
Point out how "With IBM or Amazon, you are _not_ going to get the CEO's
personal cell-phone number so you can call him/her at 3:00 am if shit goes
sideways... with us, you _will_ have that." You can probably use your
imagination to figure out other ways to promote the advantages of working with
a smaller company, especially if you can paint your competition as a nameless,
faceless, bureaucratic, Kafkaesque, corporate behemoth.

