The supplier who cannot be replaced

How we work

Why we put the weakness first

Small technical suppliers write about themselves in the plural. The website says we, the proposal describes a team, and the client reasonably concludes there is depth behind the person they met. Often there is not. That gap matters, because the thing most likely to disrupt a small business's software is not a security breach or a scaling problem — it is the one person who understood it becoming unavailable.

The measures that address it are unglamorous and entirely practical. Documentation delivered as the work proceeds rather than promised for the end. Hosting, domains and repositories registered in the client's own name with the client holding administrative access. Source code and build instructions deposited with an independent third party, where the system justifies it. A named substitute contractor for anything long enough to matter. None of this makes a single person into a team; it makes the single person replaceable, which is the actual requirement.

There is a second thing worth stating, because it is a liability clients rarely know they carry. Belgian law looks at the reality of a working relationship rather than its label. An engagement with fixed hours, direct supervision, a place in the hierarchy and exclusivity can be reclassified as employment, and the arrears of social security contributions that follow may be claimed from the client as well as from the contractor. Working to a defined scope with deliverables is not a preference about autonomy. It is what keeps both parties out of that.