I think it’s very important that someone should takeover most specially if you’re selling a subscription or retainer based service. Who’ll take care of the customers, the employees, system maintenance, billing, etc, when the single founder dies?

I love being a single founder and just hire employees throughout my entire business life however when I think of death and the future of the business, I’m starting to side in favor of a multi-founder business.

As a single founder yourself, what steps have you taken or plan to take to ensure that somebody will take over your business and that your equity goes straight to your family or whoever you want it to go to when your time comes? Or would you rather just let it die too and not pass the responsibility of running to others?

Thanks again.

In the case of an S-corp, C-corp, or an LLC, it has its own tax ID number, so regardless of the status of the owner, the entity is treated separately. Each of those organizations has what are essentially considered to be shareholders. It’s a little different for an LLC, but that’s probably the easiest way to think of it in general terms.

If someone owns stock in a public company and they die, that doesn’t mean that the company is liquidated. All it means is that the ownership shares must be liquidated. The company can technically live on. However, if you’re a single founder company and there’s nobody to take over the duties, the company will eventually run itself into the ground anyway.

But the shares in the company are basically an asset, so if you as a single founder were to die, then the shares in your company would be sold as if it were an asset. Most likely, the entire business would be sold to someone else as an asset, or the company would be liquidated as part of an estate.

So it’s possible that the company could live on after you die, even if you owned 100% of it. But if, as I said, there’s nobody there who is able or willing to take over, then it would likely close up shop.

Again, the laws may read differently and there are probably some subtleties that I’m not aware of, but that’s my best guess at it.

Let’s be honest here. Payroll processing isn’t exactly the sexiest business in the world. But in 1971, Thomas Golisano started Paychex and almost 40 years later it’s a huge company and he’s made hundreds of millions of dollars. Does anyone care? No, because processing payroll is boring. But it can still make a lot of money, and he did it without a co-founder.

My previous article, Startup Myths Debunked, seemed to attract quite a bit of attention in the developer community. In particular, people who left comments seemed to agree with “Myth#3: I need a partner”. Paul Graham who is one of the more influential …

With my business I’m driven to the ends of the earth to succeed. If Moon River Software fails, it will be because I’m dead. On the other hand, I’m too lazy to mow the lawn, clean the house, do laundry, fix things around the house, etc.”

You’re the owner? You own something other than a paper house and battery gizmos? Do you OWN it? I’d never buy your product after reading this.

Now that my Cloud Browse iPhone app is almost out, if it works out, I wouldn’t need a co-founder.

It seems co-founding teams come out of college or a workplace, and if you out of that loop, it is very hard to form a team on your own.

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