1  Introduction

setting the scene

• For every beginning there must be an ending
• But we don’t like to talk about that
  • Thousands of books in print about how to start a business
  • Only a handful about how to pass one on or wind one down
  • And many of those are really about how to sell out at the right time
  • Because mortality scares us
• Preparing for possible endings can make them less painful
  • And less likely: if we think about how things might end, we might be able to prevent some endings
• It also helps make what happens before then more enjoyable
  • E.g., business owners who were satisfied with their exits had started planning years in advance (Burlingham 2014)

1.1 Learner Personas

• Jun, 38, is a data scientist who released an open source project as part of her work at a tech company. After a reorg moved her to a different division, she wants to hand the project over to a junior team member.
• Vaida, 33, works as a data analyst for the Ministry of the Environment. She co-founded a volunteer group that teaches environmental science to high school students. She is relocating for a new job and wants to wind things down properly. She has two or three hours a week for the next couple of months.
• Chetan, 27 has maintained an online hummingbird tracking site for several years as a hobby. The project has never had a budget beyond occasional small grants. Their hosting service was hacked, and they want to resurrect it before the fall migration starts in a few days.
• Liam, 29, is a software developer for the Ministry of the Environment. After a recent election, management has decided to halt work on the open source tool he has built. He has been given until the end of the week to wind things down.

1.2 The Grid

• Organize our thoughts on a 2x2 grid
• One axis is continuity: does the project continue after the event or not?
• The other is pace: is the event gradual (you can plan) or abrupt (you cannot)?
• This gives four quadrants (each of which we have matched to a persona):
  • Succession planning: the project continues under someone else’s leadership (Jun)
  • Deliberate closure: the project does not continue, but you have time to plan (Vaida)
  • Disaster recovery: the project experiences an abrupt interruption but recovers (Chetan)
  • Abrupt closure: the project shuts down on short notice (Liam)
• Before discussing these, we look at foundations that all scenarios rely on
• Finish with a section on looking after your people, which also cuts across all scenarios

Note

An abstinence solution is one that requires people to do things we know they actually won’t (see also “bullshit” (Frankfurt 2005)). “Document everything” is an example: people will always short-change writing descriptions of work in favor of actually doing work, and fail to write down the parts of their work that they think are obvious. This isn’t laziness: most of what we can write today doesn’t actually address tomorrow’s actual needs.

1.3 Threat Models

• What situation you are in usually depends on external factors
  • Use threat modeling to think about them (Smalls and Wilson 2021)
• Individual threats affect one or a few members of your team
  • Can come from mundane career or life changes (illness, new job opportunity)
  • Or external factors (international students’ visas revoked with little warning)
• Leadership threats are specifically aimed the project’s leader (e.g., being targeted in the media for politically unpopular research findings)
• Community threats affect large groups
  • E.g., department being shut down
  • Affect so many people at the same time that the community cannot buffer the shock
  • And might not survive it
  • Climategate affected dozens of people directly and damaged the entire climate research community
• Global threats affect everyone at the same time
  • Which means other groups cannot help
  • And there may not be anywhere to run to
  • E.g., current attacks on science in the United States

Note

Governments make emergency plans to deal with community threats (if they are responsible enough to admit those threats exist). When governments themselves are in upheaval, people turn to civil society for help (Solnit 2010).

1.4 Not Covered

• Community building
  • Lots of good guides (Alinsky 1989; Brown 2007; Lakey 2018)
  • We assume you have to use the community you already have (i.e., don’t have time to build one to deal with this situation)
• Communication skills
  • We’ll focus on what to say rather than how to say it
• For-profit businesses
  • We assume your project isn’t supposed to turn a profit
  • And that growth for its own sake hasn’t been your goal (Burlingham 2016)
• (Littauer et al. 2025) has more material

1.5 Exercises

1.5.1 Quick Check

1. Which quadrant are you in?
   • Does the project continue after the event, or not?
   • And is the event gradual or abrupt?
2. Do you have days or months to prepare?
   • The former is usually involuntary
   • The latter allows for (some) structural changes before and during the event
   • And more importantly, for course correction if your first guess is wrong
3. Can you act unilaterally or do other people have a veto?
   • Not “have a stake in the outcome”, but rather can disagree with you and make it stick
   • Are those “other people” your peers or your superiors (e.g., your employer)?
4. Can you talk to someone who has been through this before?

Alinsky, Saul D. 1989. Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals. Vintage. ISBN 9780679721130.

Brown, Michael Jacoby. 2007. Building Powerful Community Organizations. Long Haul Press. ISBN 9780977151806.

Burlingham, Bo. 2014. Finish Big: How Great Entrepreneurs Exit Their Companies on Top. Portfolio/Penguin. ISBN 9781591844976.

Burlingham, Bo. 2016. Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big. Portfolio. ISBN 9780143109600.

Frankfurt, Harry G. 2005. On Bullshit. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691122946.

Lakey, George. 2018. How We Win: A Guide to Nonviolent Direct Action Campaigning. Melville House. ISBN 9781612197531.

Littauer, Richard et al. 2025. 10 Quick Tips for Making Your Software Outlive Your Job. https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.06484.

Smalls, Danielle, and Greg Wilson. 2021. “Ten Quick Tips for Staying Safe Online.” PLOS Computational Biology 17 (3). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008563.

Solnit, Rebecca. 2010. A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster. Penguin Books. ISBN 9780143118077.