Building a product usually starts with good intentions. You’ve got a clear vision, some funding (or at least enough to get started), and a list of features that need to go live fast. You don’t have a technical co-founder, you’re not planning to build a full team just yet, and honestly, you’re trying to keep costs down.
So you hire a solo developer. They seem competent. They talk the talk. You don’t understand everything they say, but that’s normal, right? You’re trusting them to handle the technical stuff while you focus on growing the business.
For a while, things go well. The code gets shipped. The product moves forward. You’re not micromanaging anything. You’re relieved, even a little proud. “This is working,” you think. Until it isn’t.
One day the developer disappears. Or quits. Or asks for something you weren’t expecting. Or just burns out. And suddenly, you realize something terrifying: they had all the keys. The codebase is on their private GitHub account. The servers were set up under their name. The database? You’ve never even seen the login screen and there is no documentation to be found.
Unfortunately, this isn’t a fictional horror story. It happens all the time and we are witnesses of somebody who went through this. Businesses, especially early-stage ones, put all their trust in one developer without realizing the risks. Then one day, they’re locked out of their own product.
This isn’t meant to scare you, but it should make you pause. Because the risk is real and surprisingly common. The good news is it’s also avoidable. You just need to know what signs to look for and how to set things up the right way from the start.
Blog Summary:
You don’t need to be technical to protect your product, you just need a little help. In this guide, we’ll walk you through:
- How solo developer setups quietly turn into long-term risks
- What early warning signs to look out for
- The real consequences of losing access to your code or infrastructure
- What minimum access and ownership you should always have
- How to evaluate a developer’s mindset before you hire them
- What to do if you’ve already lost control and how to recover
- Why working with a team gives you built-in protection and peace of mind
Table of Contents:
The Illusion of Simplicity
Relying on a solo developer can feel like a lean and agile choice, but what often gets overlooked is how much structural risk this creates behind the scenes. Without realizing it, businesses hand over too many critical decisions to one person. And these aren’t just technical choices, they’re ownership decisions. When they’re made without oversight, they centralize control in a way that’s hard to unwind.
Most solo dev setups also skip essential practices like documentation, version control hygiene, or shared infrastructure. Not out of malice, just out of speed and habit. But this lack of structure makes your tech stack opaque and fragile.
It’s not the kind of simplicity we talked about a few weeks ago. This kind of simplicity, without transparency, is just a ticking time bomb. And when things go wrong (and they eventually do), you’ll wish things had been just a little more complicated.
Early Red Flags You Shouldn’t Ignore
Most code-hostage situations don’t blow up overnight. They build slowly, quietly through small decisions that seem harmless at first. These patterns don’t always mean you’re headed for disaster, but they’re early warnings that the current setup depends too much on one person. And when your business depends on software, that’s a risk you can’t afford to ignore.
Here are some red flags that might go under noticed:
- Everything runs under the developer’s accounts. GitHub, cloud services, analytics, deployment pipelines. None of them are registered under your company name or email.
- There’s no documentation. Not even a basic README. If something breaks, only one person knows how to fix it.
- No version control or poor Git practices. You can’t see what’s being committed, or you find long, messy branches with no clear history.
- Lack of transparency. You’re told “It’s handled,” but never shown how. When you ask questions, answers are vague or overly technical to shut down the conversation.
- Resistance to collaboration. The developer avoids working with others, or you’re told bringing someone new into the codebase would be too complex or time-consuming.
Why It Happens More Than You’d Expect
Founders often assume the developer will “handle the tech side,” without realizing what that really means. There’s a natural desire to trust the person building your product, especially when they’re moving fast and delivering results. Add the pressure to launch quickly and stay lean, and long-term thinking takes a back seat.
There’s also a false sense of control. You might feel like everything’s covered because the product is live and things are working. But if you’ve never asked where the code lives, who controls access, or how the system is deployed, you’re not really in control, you’re just hoping nothing breaks.
And again, it’s rarely malicious. Most solo developers aren’t trying to create dependency. But if there’s no one asking for visibility, they won’t prioritize it.
Real Consequences
When this kind of setup falls apart, the damage is technical, yes, but it’s also operational, financial, and personal.
We’ve seen businesses lose access to production environments for weeks, unable to push updates or fix bugs. Others have had to rebuild parts of their infrastructure from scratch because there was no way to recover what was lost. Customer data has gone missing. Scheduled launches have been delayed. Investors start asking uncomfortable questions.
And then there’s the emotional cost. The stress of not knowing who has access to what. The frustration of chasing down passwords. The time spent rebuilding trust with your team, your customers, and sometimes your own product.
Tech Ownership Checklist
If you want to avoid being caught off guard, you need to own more than just the idea. You need to own the system. That starts with having access to the essentials. Here’s a simple checklist every company should be able to answer “yes” to:
- Do you have access to the source code? You should be the admin of the Git repository, ideally under a company-owned account (not the developer’s personal GitHub).
- Do you control the infrastructure? That includes cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure, etc.), servers, and hosting environments. The billing account should be in your name.
- Do you own your domain and DNS? It sounds basic, but it’s surprising how often this is forgotten.
- Do you have access to the database? And not just through the app. Direct access via credentials.
- Do you have admin rights to key third-party tools? Email services, analytics, CI/CD pipelines, and monitoring tools.
- Is there documentation of the architecture and deployment process? Even a simple high-level overview can save weeks later on.
If you’re missing one or more of these, it doesn’t mean you’re in immediate danger but it does mean you’re vulnerable. Now’s the time to fix it, before it becomes a bigger problem.
Ask the Right Questions Before You Hire
It’s easy to focus on technical skills when hiring a developer, but that’s only half the picture. The other half is how they think about collaboration, structure, and ownership. Those are the traits that will shape how sustainable your product becomes.
A good sign is when a developer asks you questions. Not just about features or timelines, but about how your product fits into the business, how users interact with it, or what you expect from the infrastructure long-term. That curiosity shows they’re not just thinking in terms of code.
Pay attention to how they talk about change. Do they mention scalability? Do they bring up maintainability without being asked? Do they suggest ways to make things easier for future developers? If so, you’re likely dealing with someone who’s built more than just MVPs.
Remember that you’re not just looking for someone who can execute. You’re looking for someone who can help you build something that won’t collapse under its weight six months from now.
What to Do If It’s Already Happened
It could be possible that you’re not reading this as a warning. Maybe you’re reading it because it’s already too late. The developer is gone. The access is missing. The system is a mystery. So what now? First, don’t panic. As frustrating as the situation is, it’s usually fixable. The key is to move methodically.
Start by auditing what you do have access to. Can you get into the live app? Do you have access to the domain registrar, your payment provider, and customer support tools? Even partial access gives you a starting point.
Try to regain control of anything tied to your brand: your domain, company emails, and any third-party tools registered under your business name. These are often overlooked, but they’re critical.
If there’s no access to the code or servers, you may need to reverse-engineer the product. That means bringing in a technical team to assess what’s running, how it works, and how to rebuild it under your ownership. Yes, it can be expensive, but it’s better than remaining locked out of your own business. In some cases, legal help may be necessary, especially if contracts aren’t clear. It’s not ideal, but it’s part of protecting what’s yours.
What matters most is that you don’t rebuild the same situation. Use the recovery process as a reset: document everything, set up proper infrastructure, and make sure the new team shares your vision for transparency and resilience.
Built-in Redundancy
One of the biggest advantages of working with a well-structured team is that no single person holds all the knowledge. Or all the power. In a healthy development environment, responsibilities are shared.
The code is reviewed by multiple people. Infrastructure is set up under standardized processes. Documentation isn’t optional. If someone leaves, the system doesn’t fall apart. Work continues, and no one has to “figure it out from scratch.”
That kind of redundancy means your product won’t stall because one person is sick, on vacation, or decides to move on. It also means you’re not tied to the pace, availability, or limitations of a single developer.
At CodingIT, this is how we work by design. Our clients get a team that builds with transparency, shares responsibility, and ensures that what we create together truly belongs to you. If you’re looking for a team that can help you grow without risking everything on one person, get in touch with us. We’d be happy to show you how we do things differently.