▲ ▼ Very high bus factor among solo founders
The "bus factor" is the minimum number of team members that have tosuddenly disappear from a project before the project stalls due to lack
of knowledgeable or competent personnel. -Wikipedia.
The bus factor is very high among solo founders, solopreneurs and indie hackers because they are often the only person working on the product and when they're unable to continue working due to any number of reasons the product is immediately dead. Investors rarely invest in the startups of solo founders due to this.
Even typical startups run by solo founders with employees, investors are always at the risk of high bus factor because they're often the sole decision maker of the startup, leading to various problems ( /problems/27 ) if they're suddenly incapacitated.
Straightforward solution to reduce the bus factor is to get co-founders(s), qualified team and hedge the risks. But being a solo founder has its benefits and there's need-gap in solutions to reduce the impact of high bus factor among those who have decided to be a solo founder.
I am not sure there is a single solution to this that would work across all industries, as the impact of the bus factor can be quite different depending on the business.
Software as a service requires that someone else has access to servers, repos, and the required technical expertise to keep it running. An accounting business or lawyer would require a roadmap to transition all their files and documents.
Maybe the generalized solution is like ISO 9000 or XBRL for transition planning along with a centralized depository with all the information required for a transition. The depository releases the plan upon the receipt of a death certificate or a board motion or just a lack of contact with the founder over a certain period.
An insurance for solo founders which will ensure that their product will be sold to a competent buyer in case they're incapacitated could increase the confidence among investors and employees.