0:12
one second uh oh shoot you have to add us
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I
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sorry off oh no Katie can you turn back on
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please introduction it is a spooky spooky
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episode of WP product talk thank you for joining us everybody this is WP product
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talk the spookiest podcast and the place where every week we interview an experienced WordPress product owner on
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strategies tips experiences failures and successes of running successful and
0:55
thriving WordPress product businesses I am Zach Katz founder of gravity kit and trusted Vin and I'm Katie Keith
1:02
co-founder and CEO at b 2 or bar woo as I have
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today and today's topic is beyond the grave safeguarding your business
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Legacy now this is a great topic because it's something that I've never really seen being discussed openly in the
1:21
WordPress Community but it's something that we should all be thinking about and to talk with us today about
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this topic is our special guest Carl Alexander uh Katie could you uh add Carl
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Alexander please and uh hello welcome Carl thanks for joining us
1:41
greetings from the future who did that I are you doing that
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are we adding him and taking him away at the same time I'm I'm leaving it alone thank you hello Carl thank you for
1:54
joining us from the future spooky Tech show where everything's the tech all
2:00
possessed and everything we can blame it on Halloween
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instead of just glitches but yes greetings from the future it is now Thursday here in Tokyo Carl can you
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please introduce yourself and uh and what do what you do yeah so uh I'm Carl
2:21
uh I solo founder I'm working on uh Emir which is basically uh running WordPress
2:28
on uh WS lamba as a serverless application and um yeah we we're
2:35
talking I'm getting ahead of myself but basically that's what I do excellent well uh for anybody who's
2:43
watching along in the YouTube chat uh you watching live on YouTube please go into the chat uh say hi ask questions we
2:51
will see your questions and we may uh ask Carl uh what you ask us so please uh
2:58
go ahead and leave your comments there yeah so as always let's start with
3:03
talking about why is this topic so important for WordPress product owners I
3:08
think it's particularly important to talk about that with this particular topic because it's something we don't
3:14
really want to talk about we want to imagine that we will live forever and that the way that we will exit our
3:21
business is through um selling it or retiring or something like that not
3:27
through US passing it and um leaving things behind unexpectedly but that
3:32
could happen to any of us and so it's important that we think about it and um
3:39
it's interesting because our businesses are in many cases our biggest assets or
3:45
certainly an important part of our assets along with our home and bank accounts and other personal assets and
3:51
so it's really important to know what to do with them but in society I think it's more known how to deal with your
3:58
personal assets when you die rather than your business assets so it's important to think about that um and give it the
4:05
worth that it deserves so car why do you think it's such an important thing to talk
4:11
about yeah uh actually I have no sort of will or anything like that I just kind
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of stumbled on the issue um because I thought it was a
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really interesting thing as a solo founder as well right I I there's a an
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it's kind of an increasing amount a share of businesses now especially in WordPress I I know a couple of people
4:36
that are basically solo Founders that are just running a small uh WordPress
4:41
business by themselves and there's a kind of appeal especially if you're trying to do kind of a lifestyle
4:47
business uh of trying to stay small um
4:52
limit the scope of what your business does and and things like that but what
4:58
happens you know what now right now we're talking like the most cryptic thing which is you know what happens if
5:06
uh you know you pass but like for a solo founder it could be simple as like I get
5:11
hit by a car uh and what happens in in those
5:18
scenarios and um it was something I was thinking about but it's something also
5:24
that started coming up when I because Emir is is more uh tailored towards
5:29
prise so there just something that comes up in sales calls uh they're just um
5:37
what are you like what happen like you're you're you're alone like what happens if something happens to you and
5:44
I just basically already had a plan in place but it it was just not something I
5:51
hear any solo Founders talk about like it's always about the lifestyle like you know grow your grow your Mr Grow this
6:00
uh you know and but it's never about like okay now you've made it like but
6:05
what happens if something happens to you absolutely yeah and one of the
6:12
things that as business owners we also need to consider is it's not just about
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us it's not about our business and like our assets only we if we work with
6:23
anybody else it's about what they what we are promising to them and what what
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you know each one of the people that depend on us as product owners uh yeah
6:34
to make sure that exactly that's what employees or contractors we need to make sure that our plans support them after
6:42
something happens to us uh if we get hit by a bus and we're not available to run
6:47
the everyday business even if we don't die what does the plan look like uh for
6:53
making sure they get paid on a regular basis for making sure that the the business continues operating uh because
7:00
our customers also deserve us to have a continuity plan to make sure that like
7:06
when we are gone um that they continue to benefit from our
7:11
services yeah absolutely um it's I think that's why I was like uh we were talking
7:17
on Twitter and I was just saying like I feel like it's it's kind of this weird topic that I think it's not even like we
7:25
don't want to think about debt per se like I I just think it's really a human
7:31
nature to think nothing's going to happen to you so it's just that's like a classic like that's why like sometimes
7:37
people don't have insurance or uh a will ready or things like that it's just
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think like oh you have so much more time like nothing's going to happen to you and then something does and um you're
7:50
you're not prepared so let's break it down in terms of what this looks like uh what do what
7:57
does it look like when you plan for what does continuity planning mean Carl
8:02
what what are we talking about here oh my goodness I mean look
8:07
uh for me uh it's not as crazy as uh it must be
8:15
for you two because I'm just uh a like a solo founder and I don't have employees
8:23
or things like that the main thing is that um with Emir per se air is an
8:30
infrastructure product so it's not I don't do hosting per se but you host your WordPress sites with it like you
8:38
still pay for your own AWS bills so even if Emir kind of disappeared your it's not like your WordPress site would
8:45
disappear but um it's still a concern right you're you're for for people so I
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had to just explain to them I just had to make sure that I had things in place
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that made sure that the service could continue um that the
9:03
product could continue in some ways so the the way that I did it is that um
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first of all I I I found a friend that I trust uh and I gave him access to the
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GitHub repository of the main application and I said if something happens to me you make it open source
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like you make it public so that people can come in look at the code they can
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try to self-host it uh somebody can come over and and start another business
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around it so that was like one way of making sure that the product lived on um
9:41
because again like that's what that's what you were talking Zach right it's like how do we make sure that the product lives on if we're not there
9:48
anymore so that was like the one of the main things that I I made sure was covered so that if you were an
9:54
Enterprise agency like you could you could find an engineer to like spin it up and you could just do a collocated
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your own version of it and then for the business itself I
10:06
just made sure like it sounds really dumb but I gave the the security sheet
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from one password to my parents and I said this is the most piece important
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piece of paper that I own here is that it is and just make sure my credit card
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gets paid like and that covers for me
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yeah and when it comes to one password I use one password as well and uh that's kind of how we have structured things as
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well so my wife and I are co-owners of the business uh but I run the business dayt day and so if anything were to
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happen to me she would take over uh and she would be in charge of knowing all the things and so many of the things to
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know are passwords and logins and credentials and all these like details that um if you aren't using a password
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manager I would say the number one thing you can do to improve your continuity
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planning is to put all your passwords in a one password manager like one the
11:13
number one password is the app that I use and Carl uses and then you can print out this sheet and you can put it in a
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safety posit box give it to your lawyer give it to your accountant give it to somebody uh offsite ideally give it to
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your spouse your parents give this to somebody who knows what that they go
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here and sign in and then what we do is we have a note I I created a note that
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says okay here are the important things to know about how the business is run
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and there's a lot of there's a lot of overlap between continuity planning and documentation of processes and I think
11:54
if there's anything in your head that when you die it's just gone nobody knows how to recreate what you do that is a
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gap in your uh planning for if you were to die or get seriously injured and no
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longer able to run the business so anything that's in your head is a liability not just for continuity
12:11
planning not just if you die when if you're looking to be acquired all this stuff is important for the person who's
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going to be acquiring you every single thing that's in your head is something that they will want written down anyway
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so by doing this by preparing for your own imminent Doom you're going to help yourself if
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you ever want to sell your business yeah that's true um when I started mine I kind of made an
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assumption that I Was preparing a document to help people sell the business and approached it with that in
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mind and then over the years I've kind of realized actually no that would be a long-term thing and my next of kin would
12:51
need to keep running it for the reasons we said earlier there are real people working for the business there's a team
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of like 15 people people um not including the directors and also there's
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all of the customers as well and things like that and we even have some historical clients uh who we look after
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their website still so and that's important for their businesses so there's quite a lot it's interesting
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we've got some quite different perspectives between the three of us because we've got Carl as a solopreneur
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Zach who runs the company with your wife but she's not as actively involved and I
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run the company 5050 with my husband Andy so our continuity planning is
13:34
really 100% focused on if something happened to both of us if it was just
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one of us we know how to access each other's stuff we know vaguely what each other works on and professionally we're
13:47
not too worried what we worry about is if we both disappeared off the face of the Earth and what would happen to the
13:53
company because like my parents or would like be stuck being me Executives of our
13:59
Wills which includes this quite large company to manage so we've got a quite a
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indepth document which is already shared with them which goes through everything
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and quite a lot of people have previously asked me what's in the document so I've created a kind of
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structure which I'm going to put on the um notes the description of this YouTube video afterwards um so you can see
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what's in it and I'm not saying that's everything or that it's exhausted but that's what I've found useful and it
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goes through everything like the day-to-day management like if we just disappeared what would you need to do in
14:36
the next week to make sure people still get paid and things like that um things
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like I've suggested that my next of kin nominate some of my team as directors so
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that there are people who know the company managing it actively in our absence so we've actually suggested
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several people from the team to be nominated as directors if that happen and there's legal stuff like um like my
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they don't even necessarily know the cont the structure of the company and the legal side of it and how to get that
15:11
information they're like yeah they run some sort of web business they don't necessarily know actually what it is
15:18
that is a formally um Incorporated company and all of that kind of thing and then there's a list of all the
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assets like Zach mentioned a minute ago and it's interesting when you list them that these are actually important both
15:30
for your NEX of kin to get hold of these things and also as assets to increase the value if they decide to sell your
15:37
company in the future so it's not just things like bank accounts it's also your domain names your website source code of
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your plugins um places like where you store your company files your mailing
15:49
list is probably quite a valuable asset social media accounts hopefully you have
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written processes I know there will always be something that's only in your head and that's a ongoing battle
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thinking if I Disappeared nobody else would know this I'd better write it down but ideally you'd have all this written
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down and all of these are company assets that people need to know but I actually
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disagree slightly with the two of you about the one pass because I don't think that matters when somebody dies there
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are a formal processes to obtain access to their accounts so like the next of
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kin can apply to say PayPal to get access to a deceased person's account
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and that applies to all major companies really so what I've done in my document
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is instead of sharing the passwords now while Andy and I are still alive we've
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put just the username of each account so that they can apply for Access and we felt that would be more secure in the
16:50
short term although obviously with people you trust you can share your one pass as
16:55
well oh and the final thing in my document is I've actually provided some really actionable stuff about if they
17:03
wanted to sell the company so I've provided details of like Brokers and
17:08
individuals that buy WordPress companies and things like that so because they wouldn't know what to do like how do you
17:15
sell a company and it's this very specific type of tech company so I've actually given even things like email
17:20
addresses of people I know that would help with that process and so on so it's quite comprehensive but the main thing
17:28
is kind of update it and make sure people know where it is if the worst happens so link to it from your will for
17:34
example give it to them now yeah in terms of the reason I share
17:42
one password credentials instead of waiting for the the process to um go through the death uh built-in death
17:50
processes for like stripe and PayPal and stuff is that it that surely is not going to be a quick process as opposed
17:56
to one password where they could gain immediate access if they needed to um so in in the yeah that's what I was going
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to say as well yeah in the US death uh can take a long
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time yeah it probably yeah it's the same in Canada I was thinking the banks especially the bank it can take over a
18:17
year um for the whole process to get access to your bank like bank accounts
18:22
and things like that it's really timec consuming Katie when you mentioned the
18:28
your you have in your document uh recommended team members who would take over are those team members named of the
18:33
document do they know whether or not they're uh next in line for the for the
18:38
crown no they might kill me then um actually this is really recent it was
18:46
literally this weekend that Andy and I last updated it and because we're redoing our wills at the moment another
18:52
thing if you live abroad we just discovered that we need a UK will and a Spanish will for our Spanish assets so
18:59
we're doing all of that at the moment in terms of our personal stuff and at the same time we're updating the business
19:05
continuity document and we decided we were thinking in more depth what would my poor parents do if they had our
19:12
company dumped on them and they're not even the airs because we have a daughter they are just the poor Executives that
19:18
would have to do all the crap to arrange it all on behalf of our daughter which seems really mean actually but um there
19:26
you go so we decided that for the day-to-day management uh it would be helpful if they could nominate people
19:33
that know the company and we decided to nominate uh give a selection because
19:39
people might say no to this extra responsibility so we've given a kind of few suggestions from marketing and a few
19:46
from development because we thought that would replicate mine and Andy's skill set we've always been very lucky at bar
19:53
2 that we have a kind of a head with a marketing background and a head with
19:58
technical background and so we thought let's replicate that after we're gone by nominating two directors but there's
20:05
kind of a choice with a a recommendation at the top of the list and do you have them do you give
20:13
them extra money or anything with the additional responsibility does it say what to do in that regard well I wanted
20:21
to put that in um suggesting that my the the executives would increase their pay
20:27
and and felt that was too much detail and that that's something they would work through with our accountant at the
20:32
time because we've advised them to work with the accountant because there's a formal process for nominating company
20:38
directors in the UK it being a UK company so uh we thought we'll leave that at the time and hopefully it's
20:45
obvious to them that if you make someone a director you give them a raise yeah in in my experience with
20:52
Wills uh the more uncertainty there is the worse it is like every single thing
20:59
that could be answered probably should be answered and leave it like still give people the ability to be flexible on
21:05
that if if it's something you think should be flexible but I would if I don't have this provision in my
21:12
company's continuity plan and I'm going to be adding it thanks to you so thanks Katie um but I will certainly propose
21:21
that they in get a temporary raise of you know I anything that's left up to um
21:28
battles or anything that could be uh could result in a lawsuit is always a good idea to to try to think of that
21:35
ahead of time and put that in the document so that you avoid any additional stress for your poor
21:43
parents yeah interesting yeah I really like the comment about the
21:50
selling I think that was like one thing when I started my company I'd read so many disaster stories about like um not
22:00
well like separating all your all your stuff for the company so I find like
22:06
that already kind of prepares you because at least all the stuff is kind
22:11
of well separated and easier to at least
22:17
find um car what do you mean separated well I think it was uh k k
22:25
Katie caddy um that said is just if you want to sell you you don't want like I
22:33
it's really common for solo Founders to like just mix everything together like you don't get separate uh like I I
22:41
created separate accounts for everything because it's it's kind of like the same auditing process if you try to sell a
22:47
company you have to go and document everything but you also have to have everything well separated so that they
22:56
can like audit your books and audit everything and you can have a clean send off because
23:04
otherwise um you just end up with it's it's a mess to untangle right if you're
23:11
using your personal Gmail to run a business or all that stuff it's it's
23:16
it's really messy so I was lucky that that was already kind of taken care of uh you know it's like its own the
23:23
business has its own credit card it has its own this it's it's easier
23:29
for somebody even that might not know as much to just come in and be like okay
23:34
everything at least in one password is under like a specific team so like they know at least
23:41
okay everything's on there just everything to just make it a bit easier because like my parents aren't the most
23:47
technical people like I've at least made a product where it can keep running in
23:54
essentially indefinitely so um if they'll be fine they just have to pay
23:59
the credit card but it's just it's good to have all these things separated because um if they want to sell it like
24:06
you said or try to get in process it it would be terrible right
24:12
for for for them to do that as well one is not a legal entity so you're kind of
24:19
working as a soulle Trader as it were I don't know what the legal terminology is
24:25
um in your country no Noir is incorporated it's like a Canadian incorporated business so yeah so it's
24:32
like a it's got its own it doesn't have a trademark yet but it it's it's a named
24:38
Corporation in Canada uh so it it's got everything it's just um that's why it
24:44
need it's still but it's still important to have all that but that's another common mistake
24:51
as well right you you make it all under your name and then it's like it's even messy for um
24:59
the whoever ends up with having to manage that one of the ways that I
25:05
always find gaps in my documentation and uh is to hire somebody to bring somebody
25:11
on board and try to explain how we work what we do um so for product owners that
25:17
are growing and starting to bring on people uh when you're hiring people and you're explaining oh this is how we do
25:23
this you go this you go to stripe and you enter this detail here to get this key that all that stuff should be
25:29
written down at a dock and I know it's a lot of work but that's what the continuity plan like can be comprised of
25:36
like uh we want to hand off a sheath of paper and say like here here's all our
25:42
documentation for what you need to know to run this business and if there are gaps uh as you discover the gaps and you
25:49
remember to to update your thing I have a calendar in uh reminder every year to update my continuity plan or every
25:56
quarter even uh because because when you bring on new people when people leave when their salaries change uh change um
26:03
you want to up I update that in in the doc so that people have an understanding of when they're inheriting the business
26:09
this is the like the state of the of the business um so when you bring on new people you uh that's a great opportunity
26:18
to to update all that information you know one of the things I find challenging with writing this is
26:25
what tone to strike because this is written for loved ones after you've died
26:30
that's really scary and I've gone for quite a matter of fact approach but Zach
26:36
I remember reading yours a year or two and yours has some really nice more emotional stuff in it so I don't know
26:43
what the right balance is do you want to talk a bit about where you were coming from in talking to your loved ones from
26:49
Beyond the Grave yeah so the the touchy feel stuff is really the the opening uh
26:58
cover page as you were as you would like it says don't worry everything will be
27:04
fine uh I I love you it's okay like you can do this here's what you need to do
27:10
first uh and because it's going to be it it's going to be emotional for whomever
27:16
even if they barely knew you if like my uh my accountants like I've never actually met them in person you know
27:23
they still we email a lot like it's still like Oh weird this is something that they're giving to me so maybe they
27:29
don't get the I love you but uh other than that it's a matter of
27:36
fact and it's written as if I were talking to myself to try to explain to myself what the heck I set up because
27:42
that's always it's often going to be myself when I'm trying to remember uh the processes that I that in a flurry of
27:50
trying to get things done I didn't like remember how they fit together um so so
27:58
yeah I read it for myself how about how about you Carl what's your what's your tone of the of a document look like I
28:04
mean I don't have I mean I could tell you how it played out when I told my my friend I'm like he's like wow that got
28:11
creepy real fast when I was like giving him access to to the GitHub
28:16
repository uh he's like that's cryptic I was like well I mean I one thing that struck with me is
28:24
not necessarily tone but you you mentioned something with the documentation is I think it's kind of an
28:30
underrated I feel like all this stuff we hate doing it but it's almost as it's
28:36
like the most valuable part of our business uh like how we do what we do everything that we've yeah how we do
28:43
what we do actually I mean I'm a I'm a techie right and I was talking with another solo founder and we were talking
28:48
about how we think our test Suite is actually worked more than the actual product like because without the test
28:57
Suite you never know if the actual product works right so but they're all
29:02
things that are kind of stressful to do I'm not pleasant I probably would go
29:07
with a matter of fact tone but I'm also autistic so I mean I would just do the
29:13
normal kind of tone but I think what's important is that there's
29:19
detail and I would I would go if anything I kind of as a teacher and
29:25
somebody that's G done a lot of talks I probably wouldn't even write for myself like I would write for somebody that
29:30
knows nothing right um like try to be
29:36
try to put yourself in the shoes of somebody that like has really no no idea
29:42
um and like really go with the beginner mindset right uh and try to put yourself
29:48
in their shoes like I like the idea of of if it's a new employee right they're
29:55
new they don't know anything um um just put as much detail as you can think um
30:02
if you think it's obvious write it down anyways uh like that's been a common mistake when I've was writing articles
30:09
I'm like oh no they'll figure it out and then 100% of the time it's a question to comments and so it's worth like writing
30:18
more detail that's like that's the way I would think about it um but I don't really have any documents yet like I my
30:25
main focus as a kind of solopreneur is because the business is not that big yet
30:32
it's mostly okay I have to make sure that my clients can continue to deploy
30:39
and use the product so what do I need to do that and it's making sure the code gets public and they can take it over
30:46
and that uh somebody can take it over and that my the bills the servers don't shut
30:53
down yeah that's true business continuity is the key priority there isn't it yeah yeah yeah it's for me
31:02
that's the main thing it's it that's what the Enterprise clients are are worried about they're they're like okay
31:08
what if you what what if something happens to you like can we still like use this and um I'm I I tell them like
31:17
I'm making sure that this this will happen uh so the credit card the bills
31:22
are going to get paid and the code's going to get open sourc so you can put a Vel ER on it and somebody can take it
31:29
over if they want to but the co the the applications just keep running essentially and definitely that's like
31:35
the beauty with I mean now I'm pitching serverless but that's the beauty of serverless is that once you deploy it
31:41
once um it'll as long as AWS exists uh it'll keep running so I don't have to
31:48
worry about server updates or things like that so essentially um I mean
31:55
that's the that's the best that I can hope for right right so that I can my parents can pay the credit card bill and
32:00
that the the servers don't go offline and Carly you were talking earlier about the all the different
32:06
places where information lies and that's one of the things that we have in our
32:11
document is um you know DNS with Cloud flare uh domains now with Cloud flare um
32:18
like hover hosting all the all the different stuff each service one thing
32:24
that I did when I Was preparing the document of so I went into my uh bank account and the credit card statement
32:30
and I looked at each of the bills that are renewing and I said okay each one of these should be documented not just what
32:37
they are where to log in what the credentials are but why we use them what pieces fit into where because it's even
32:46
for me I don't always remember which email is being sent from which Service uh when we send out like we have a cart
32:53
abandonment service that is different from our newsletter service those need to be documented not just why we pay
32:59
like what we pay them but why we pay them who the contacts are Who would know how to set this up or know how to turn
33:06
it off um all every bill on your credit card statement is a thing that should be
33:13
documented a recurring Ren you know recurring bill I mean I like the idea a lot like it's just a really quick way of
33:21
like auditing a lot of things like okay is it I'm I it's on my credit card statement is it DOC Ed somewhere like
33:28
that's like a really easy um way to capture a lot of a lot of information
33:36
and that's something you're going to need to do if you ever want to sell your business you have to justify the the pr the cost to your business and explain
33:43
what part of are they in development are they in you know business uh operations
33:49
that sort of thing so it's always good to do anyway and that doesn't have to be in
33:54
the business continuity document it just has to be somewhere that's referenced from it so for example we have a company
34:01
Wiki site where we document all our processes and everything and including all the people we pay and why and all of
34:09
that kind of thing uh so we just referenced that from the business continuity document and we're we're I'm
34:16
moving this to notion it had been in a GitHub repo and that was really a pain in the neck to update just like it
34:23
wasn't great and I know that other people use uh getbook um other people
34:28
use Google Docs I hate Google Docs because I can never find anything um so we're already using notion and I've
34:34
already set up a a team space in notion to to do all this like to migrate all our docs over
34:42
there so uh in terms of the best advice for product owners um Katie I'd love to
34:47
hear what you have to say about this like what's your what's your number one advice for people if they're just
34:53
getting started uh planning for their own ghouly
34:59
demise um my best advice would be to do it plan it and do something in writing
35:07
that the people who will end up picking up the pieces um will need that will
35:12
change that will differ depending on where you are in your product selling career so if you're just getting started
35:20
with products and it's just you then you still need to think how is your customers going to be helped think about
35:26
the value earlier than you might think when I started selling plugins it didn't
35:32
occur to me for years that there was any inherent value other than the revenue it was bringing in and it took a really
35:38
long time for it to click that this was actually a a thing that had value that
35:44
could be sold as part of my estate when I was gone and I suddenly realized my
35:50
parents may not know that they don't understand what I do particularly and
35:55
then I started having this terrible fear that if Andy and I died then they would
36:01
just close down the business and not realizing it was worth like a lot of money um so part of the motivation was
36:09
think about protecting your assets for your loved ones after you're gone because your business might have more value than you realize even if it's
36:16
quite early so whatever stage you're at get something in writing and do
36:23
it yeah I I mean I had to I had thought about that early on cuz emir's IP is wor
36:31
a lot um like I I have the pleasure and
36:37
also the curse of being like the like literally the only one on the planet that like understands this so
36:46
um I was just trying to think okay could my parents even figure out how to like
36:51
how to sell something where like the codes the IP like they it's just it's
36:57
really complicated so I just kind of decided to go with the the the open sourcing dip at least
37:04
for now but I think it's a really valuable thing to to think about that
37:09
your business is an asset like that's like that's why I'm doing a business is
37:15
because I believe the business is an asset so you should not the business
37:20
continuity or the people that uh are thinking about that should definitely or
37:25
getting that um um should definitely know that it's
37:30
something valuable that they should be trying to sell like I liked your idea of having the Brokers for example in it I
37:37
think that like reflects that idea yeah and with the with the Brokers
37:42
um we have Fe International listed as people to contact uh for evaluation I
37:49
found their evaluations to be uh not fully understanding what WordPress is
37:55
sometimes um they they came in very low for for the valuation but it was a valuation so it was helpful um in the
38:03
document we also have uh a thing that says expect to sell for X multiplier uh
38:10
for year-over-year like for yearly Revenue so that they have a sense for
38:15
okay even if the valuation is low and it's half of what it should be um this
38:20
is what we expect it should sell for based on what we know about the business so like that's that's a nice thing to do
38:26
is say like uh not just Fe International but contact this other person cont Katie
38:31
I'm afraid you're on my list uh for people uh to contact uh to get advice I
38:38
put Matt on my list today actually When I Was preparing James was on it and I decided to upgrade to
38:45
Matt all right well I'll I'll put Matt on my list too Carl feel free to to add that mat Cromwell yeah go ahead yeah
38:53
once I do a list of people I will I will do it but consider everybody listening add to your to your continuity yeah to
39:02
your not because he would buy your business but because he knows people at liquid
39:07
web or just to cause him trouble after that might not be a bad Matt might not
39:13
be a bad choice for me because he knows me enough to but I mean everybody is like basically my Moto is
39:20
like you lost me at high am Carl right so it's a bit the same with the IP so
39:26
but he would probably find people that that would actually it's actually not a bad idea I I
39:31
will yeah you know this is like the takea away from this show add Matt Cromwell he'll figure it out and one of
39:38
the things that you can do I don't remember if we have this in our plan is if somebody does arrange for selling the
39:44
business if if Matt Cromwell thank you for your service uh after after I'm gone
39:49
uh you can give them a percentage of the sale price as a as a thank you and like
39:54
as a um payment for their services so they're not just doing it for free out of their
40:00
out of their good of their heart like incentivize the work so that you don't burden somebody after you're dead
40:07
instead you you give them an opportunity to make Bank um yes that's a good idea if
40:14
they're different from the people that are inheriting the shares
40:20
right yeah in terms of my best advice to new product owners um is similar to KES
40:26
which is uh do do any get started do anything um anything is better than
40:32
nothing Carl's got a one password Vault and instructions to his friend that's
40:38
way better than not having a one password Vault and instructions to his friend honly that's that was going to be
40:44
my best advice because the number of like Enterprise Sals calls that I just said that and they were
40:50
like wo you actually thought about it like that got me like so far like when I
40:56
was talking with larger Enterprise clients that just I like it just makes
41:02
you look a bit more professional um because it's not because
41:08
you're like you're especially as a solo person trying to like Target Enterprise
41:13
you're trying to hit H you're punching above your weight right so you want to at least like look uh like you've got
41:22
your things covered right so they were just always press like every time it's
41:27
come up like people were just like wow I can't I didn't I expected you to say no
41:32
uh so I that's my advice to like the solo like the solopreneurs is just have
41:39
it because you never know if you're having these kind of discussions with potential customers like important
41:45
customers especially if you're doing Enterprise it'll just make you look better yeah and offload as much as
41:52
possible but like at the very least get a password manager print out the backup sheet store it somewhere that you are
41:58
not uh and that's a good first step um before we move on I'd like to um
42:06
bring up some some comments that somebody left uh joose kver and sorry if
42:11
I am mispronouncing your name says uh working solo as well I've been thinking
42:17
about this uh some steps have been prepared but it still needs work yeah it's there's always going it's
42:24
not a document that you write once and you are done it's a it's a living document ironically uh where every time
42:32
something changes it's a good opportunity to update your your continuity
42:40
docs yeah and like you said I think when you're growing your business too it's
42:46
just documenting um it's kind of like code right you have to be kind to your like
42:51
future self like you mentioned it a couple of times Zach like it's just like I don't know what I'm going to remember
42:57
in three years right um it's it's just we're just basically
43:06
trying to make sure that a our future us that's not de in the problem right now
43:11
can at least figure out what we were thinking at the time yep and code comments are a great
43:17
form of continuity planning if you're asset is code uh and your code is
43:23
undocumented good get commits good get messages good good commit messages
43:31
exactly Uh Kevin bartov uh Bard uh batdorf pardon me asks um did you do you
43:39
include a lawyer in the process uh Katie what do you have to say about that my will yes the business
43:48
continuity document no but I am sharing the link to the business continuity
43:54
document with the lawyer to put formally in the will so that it goes to the right people at the right time I'm not even
44:01
giving them a printed copy because it's going to change every six months or more often so really it's about this the
44:07
business continuity document is a working document not necessarily a legal
44:13
document and that is referenced from the legal document which is your will yeah and the will it's if you part
44:21
of continuity planning if you don't have a personal will and you own a business or part of a business have a will you
44:27
are going to do so much you're going to inflict so much pain and suffering on
44:33
your loved ones if you don't have a will uh because even if your document uh for your business is clear as to what should
44:39
happen it doesn't matter if you don't have a will that says this business is now under ownership of this other person
44:46
or uh this is the executive of my estate who has the authority to make these
44:51
decisions for the business even if it's written in the business doc it doesn't mean anything if the ownership isn't
44:57
clear once you die so make sure you have a will Carl I'm going to hold you to
45:03
this I I I definitely don't have a will right now uh like right now I'm I'm
45:08
definitely my plan is like I've said already is just open source it make sure
45:14
the bills get paid so here's the thing Carl uh what does a will look like a will can be a scrolled note on a piece
45:21
of paper that you go to UPS that's where that's where I go for my notary signature like my notaries um all you
45:28
need is one other person and a notary public to stamp the thing that says they've witnessed the signature of this
45:34
document all it needs to say is I'm Carl uh I want my
45:40
friend Sylvia to take over Matt Cromwell I want Matt Cromwell to to come down and
45:45
run my business and then it does and then have a notary public at UPS or
45:51
wherever stamp it and then it's official it can just be I want things open source first I want this person to have control
45:58
it could be two lines and that's a start of a will you don't need to pay a lawyer uh but um we did pay okay did pay a
46:05
lawyer but it's it's you can't I don't know UPS has that power in Canada yeah
46:11
I've never heard of that yeah well notary public is what they have in the US whatever it's called in in UPS in uh
46:17
in Canada or Great Britain um look into it because that's all that we need uh
46:23
somebody to verify that this was what actually happened well this is good advice if
46:29
you're in the US anyhow like cuz I didn't realize it was that simple can Canada's got to be
46:36
similar I don't know sometimes we like making things complicated you know we we come from the britz we do like we like
46:44
making things complicated sometimes all right
46:49
well uh thank you so much Carl for being with us uh on this Mortal coil and also
46:56
on this call um next week uh our other co-hosts Amber and Matt are going to be
47:03
discussing pre-sales calls and webinars with special guest Amanda Corman who is the director of customer success for
47:08
Stellar WP so uh make sure to tune in next week yeah and special thanks to post
47:16
status for being our green room looks like Zach is still stuck in the green room um if you're enjoying these shows
47:23
do a suror and hit like sub subscribe share it with your friends add us to your newsletters and most of all we hope
47:30
to see you next week bye