Small business succession kills 70% of family firms at transfer

When a small business owner dies or becomes incapacitated, the business typically has no documented succession plan, no buy-sell agreement funded by insurance, and no one else who knows the passwords, vendor contracts, client relationships, or regulatory compliance details. The surviving family inherits an entity they cannot operate but are immediately liable for: payroll must be met, leases continue, taxes are due. So what? They must either scramble to run a business they don't understand, sell at a distressed price to a competitor who lowballs them, or shut down entirely, destroying the family's primary wealth-building asset. So what? Employees lose their jobs, customers lose their provider, and the family gets pennies on the dollar for what was often worth $1-10M as a going concern. So what? Decades of the deceased's life work evaporate in weeks. This persists because estate attorneys focus on asset distribution, not operational continuity. Business brokers aren't involved until after death, by which time key relationships and institutional knowledge are already lost. No standard toolkit exists to create a 'break glass in case of death' operational handoff package.