3. Permanently Incapacitated Challenge¶

This is a challenge made for solopreneurs/indie founders. But anyone doing it, will also learn a lot about personal resilience and disaster recovery.

Situation

You're in a fatal accident and you're gone. The banks will cancel your accounts and cards. If you have a one-person company, it might get discontinued fast. Your business should keep running, so someone else needs to take over.

The Preparation¶

BACKUP PERSON: you should already have an idea of who can take over when you're not available for a longer time. It might be your spouse, your family member, your friend, your co-founder (if any). If there is no designated person, then that's your first vulnerability.
SEPARATION: Invite this person for this challenge in your house or office (whichever location would help them the most). They should have access to your PC, phone, documents, safe, ... You, on the other hand, are not available.
GATHER DOCUMENTS: give them a printout of your bank and credit card payments of the last year.
TIME YOURSELF: ideally all tasks should be finished in one afternoon.
TAKE NOTES: ask them to take notes of what they're doing and learning. Use a pen and paper. Prefix with the time.

The Tasks¶

Pick a random date in the 6 months. Consider this the date that the government starts notifying all banks and services that you're gone.
now go through the credit card statements of the last year and start from that date. All payments after that date would have failed. Per payment, ask yourself:
- does this have an effect on my business?
- is it clear for the backup person what this payment was for?
- is it easy enough for the backup person to know where they need to log in to change the payment method?
do the same for your bank account statements

Learnings¶

how easy is it for them to recover your password manager?
how easy is it for them to recover your 2-factor authentication account?
how easy is it for them to recover your email?
how easy is it for them to pay for stuff?