Skip to main content
LifeWyn

Founders

Founder dependency check

How much of a business lives only in one person's head, accounts and relationships.

This is the sharper half of business continuity: not whether records exist, but how much depends on one person specifically. A high dependency score is not a failure of planning — it is normal for a small company — but it is worth knowing rather than discovering.

Answers stay in this browser — nothing is sent to LifeWynQuestions reviewed 2026-08-27

Progress

0 of 8 answered

Section 1 of 3 · 35% of the score

Knowledge

Is the way the business actually works written down anywhere?

Not a handbook — the handful of things only you know how to do.

Could someone else run the month-end and the payroll cycle from notes?

The recurring processes with a deadline attached.

Is there a record of which vendors do what and why they were chosen?

Saves a successor from re-litigating decisions you already made.

Section 2 of 3 · 40% of the score

Access

Are critical accounts held by the company rather than by you personally?

Registrar, cloud, payment processor, code hosting.

Does more than one person hold administrative access to each critical system?

Two is a plan; one is a person.

Would someone else be able to satisfy the second factor on those accounts?

The step that quietly defeats most continuity plans.

Section 3 of 3 · 25% of the score

Relationships

Do key customers and partners know somebody at the business other than you?

Relationships held by one person leave with that person.

Do your key employees know who to take direction from if you are unavailable?

Uncertainty is what makes people leave in the first month.

Nothing answered yet. Your score appears once every question has an answer — a part-finished score would measure the questions you skipped.

How this score is worked out

Three sections: knowledge, access and relationships. Every question is phrased so that “yes” means the dependency has been REDUCED, which keeps a high score meaning the same thing it means in every other tool here.

Every question is yes/no and carries a weight of 1 to 3. A section scores the weight you answered “yes” to as a percentage of its total weight. The overall score combines the section percentages by the section weights shown on each heading, which always total 100, then rounds. Anything you have not answered counts as “no”, so a half-finished assessment always scores lower than the same situation fully answered — the score is never flattered by stopping early.

The score reflects only the answers you gave. It cannot see your documents, your accounts or the rules where you live, so treat it as a prompt for what to check next, not a verdict.

This is a self-assessment, not advice. It scores the answers you gave against a checklist we wrote — it does not see your documents, your accounts or your jurisdiction, and it is not legal, tax or financial advice. What is required varies by country. Treat the score as a prompt for what to look at next, and speak to a qualified professional about your own situation.

All LifeWyn tools