Guide
First, secure access. Make sure the business, not the developer, owns the domain, hosting, code and accounts. Then find out what's running, get the code and a working backup somewhere you control, and only then look for someone to take it on.
You'll be talking to one of us, not a salesperson.
It happens more than you'd think. The person who built your system hands in their notice, or just stops answering. Suddenly nobody knows how the software is hosted, where the code lives or what that monthly charge is for.
Don't rush to hire a replacement this week. The first job is making sure you own and control your own systems. Most handovers go wrong because the business can't prove it owns them.
Most departures are perfectly amicable, and a good developer will help. Ask for a handover in writing, using the list below. If they've already gone, offer to pay for their time. A few days from someone cooperative is worth weeks of someone else digging.
If it isn't friendly or you can't reach them, move faster on access and slower on everything else. Don't delete anything, don't change hosting, and don't let anybody tidy up until you know what's running.
In roughly this order. The question each time: whose name is on the account, who can log in, and is it you?
Find the registrar with a whois lookup. Make sure the registrant is your company, not the developer. Get the login, change the password, turn on two-factor, and check the renewal date and the card on file.
Often not at the registrar. It might be Cloudflare, your host or AWS. Get that login and save every record. Whoever holds DNS decides where your website and email go.
List them all. Your bank statements and the developer's inbox are good places to look. Get owner access for each.
Get a full copy into an account you control. If it only exists on the live system or someone's laptop, that's the first thing to fix.
Change everything they held, including API keys for payment, email and other outside services. Do it carefully, because live software is using them.
Find out whether any exist, and test one. Then keep a copy somewhere of your own.
Then find someone to take it on.
Once you're in control, you can take your time. Whoever comes next should want to read the code before they promise anything, and should be wary of telling you to rebuild it all.
This is what we do. We've taken on plenty of software written by people who've gone. We'll read it, tell you the truth about it and look after it from there. If you're stuck on any of the steps above, ring us and we'll help you through it.
Rob's written a step-by-step guide to getting back into your servers, domains and accounts when a developer has gone. If it looks like something worse has happened, read the first hour after a hack.
It goes straight to Rob and Jase. You'll hear back from one of us, usually the same day, and we'll tell you honestly whether we're the right people.