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by mindhash 3030 days ago
Most of my worry with one person business is what happens when you are not well or need to take personal vacation. How to arrange an ongoing support ?
1 comments

My business is based on OSS; people are used to no support. I've tried to guide my customers to open issues and stackoverflow questions to get a response from the community. This makes for a nice historical archive that others can search and find similar questions and answers.

I explicitly state in my support policy that emailed questions can take 48 business hours to answer. I take my laptop with me on vacation to answer support questions every morning. The rest of the day is free.

You could also contract out support for a week if you really want to avoid the laptop. Pay a contractor friend $$$ to answer your support emails for a week.

My main issue is that collecting money takes as much time/email as support. ~30% of my customers have some need for a manual touch during their annual renewal: forgot password, change email, billing question, etc. My first hire is likely to be an AR person who can handle that administration.