"What happens when it breaks? You're one guy on a yacht."
Why I built HP Ltd to work while I'm at sea
I am one operator. I spend part of the year at sea. The honest version of "what happens when it breaks" starts with what happens when I am unreachable.
I am one operator. I also spend part of each year at sea as a rotational yacht captain, in places where cell signal is theoretical. So the honest version of "what happens when it breaks" starts with: what happens when I am unreachable.
The Sunday test
Before any automation goes live for you, it has to pass a test I call the Sunday test.
If Stripe changes something on a Sunday morning while I am somewhere I cannot check email until Monday night, three things must be true:
- The system notices the failure without me
- You are told the system noticed
- You can turn the system off and revert to manual with one action
This is the standard I build to. It is an acceptance check we agree and test before go-live — not a claim about what has already been proven at scale.
If your business needs more than that — a 30-minute response time, a 24/7 phone line — we settle it before you sign. We also name the person who responds while I am unavailable. If your required coverage is beyond what I can offer, I say so and point you elsewhere.
What "one guy" actually means
The alternative to hiring me is usually one of three:
- A bigger agency where you speak to an account manager and never meet the person doing the work
- A freelancer on Upwork whose availability is invisible until it isn't
- Your nephew
The agency will still exist in 2028. The work will be done by a rotating cast of contractors, and the person who wrote your automation in month 2 is not the one debugging it in month 8. That is how the model works.
The freelancer route is faster and cheaper on paper. The failure mode is that a paid week off looks the same as a paid week ghosting.
The nephew — I have opinions I will keep off the record.
The trade with me is different. You get exactly one person. You know when I am on the boat because I tell you, and the automation is built to survive it. If you fire me in month six, you keep everything I built. It runs on your accounts, in your infrastructure, in tools you can find another operator for.
What I do not promise
- A four-hour response time. If you need one, say so before signing.
- That nothing will ever break, or that an alert always arrives before a customer notices. What I do is test the failure alerts and rehearse the manual fallback with the person who will use it.
- A 24/7 phone line. The proposal names the support hours, the contact route, the work included, and what happens outside that coverage.
What this article does not claim
It does not claim my company is at agency scale. It is not. That is the point.
The keeper
A system that only works when I am awake is not a system. It is a favour.
Everything I build is designed to work while I sleep, while I am at sea, and while you are on holiday. That is the job.
Talk to me
If you want the Sunday-test write-up for the specific automation you are considering, book 30 minutes. I will walk through what would have to be true, and I will be honest about what still needs testing.