What the Hell Did They Install? A 30-Minute Check for Any Tech Job

The project is finished. Superhacker Man sends a voice note that starts with “So, bro, basically” and lasts four minutes. The word “seamless” appears six times. There is a link, a screenshot of a dashboard full of graphs, and an invoice.

You click the link. Something loads. It looks… fine? You think it works. You hope it works. You are about to pay for “fine” and “hope”.

Gerald, one of his earlier clients, did exactly this. Eight months later his website went down, Superhacker Man had moved to “Web3 consulting”, and the domain was registered in Superhacker Man’s own name. Gerald now owns a very nice invoice and nothing else.

You don’t need to read code to avoid being Gerald. You need The Handover Check: thirty minutes, a notebook and the courage to ask a few boring questions.

1. Who owns the keys? (10 minutes)

This is the one that matters most, so do it first. Every tech job sits on top of accounts: the domain, the hosting, the email, the form tool, the payment tool, the WhatsApp number.

For each one, ask: whose name and email is the account in?

Account	Should be in the name of	Red flag
Domain (yourbusiness.com)	Your business	Registered to the contractor
Hosting / server	Your business, contractor invited	Only the contractor can log in
Business email	Your business	Lives inside the contractor’s account
Forms, sheets, automations	Your business account	Built in their personal account
Payment tools	Your business, always	Anything else, ever

✅ What you want to hear: “Everything is in your accounts. I’m invited as a user, and you can remove me any time.”

🚩 Red flag: “It’s easier if I keep it under my account, I’ll manage it for you.” Easier for whom? Translation: you’re renting your own business back from him.

The test is simple: log in yourself, with your own email and your own password, and see it. If you can’t, you don’t own it yet.

2. Try it like a customer (5 minutes)

Forget the dashboard with the graphs. Use the thing like a real customer would, on your phone, on mobile data:

• Fill in the form. Place the order. Book the slot.
• Check that you get notified and that the information lands where you were promised.
• Try one silly thing: leave a box empty, type letters into the phone number.

If it breaks while you’re testing it, it will break with customers. Better that it breaks in front of you, before you pay.

“Let me check something real quick” is the sound of a project that wasn’t finished.

3. Ask “what happens when it breaks?” (5 minutes)

Everything breaks eventually. A real professional has already thought about it. Ask three questions:

1. Is there a backup? Where is it, and how often is it made?
2. Has anyone tried restoring it? A backup nobody has ever restored is a rumour, not a backup.
3. Who gets told when something fails? If an order fails at 2 AM, does anyone find out, or do you hear about it from an angry customer at noon?

4. Get the instructions in writing (5 minutes)

Ask for a one-page document, in plain English, that answers:

• What was built, in one paragraph.
• Which accounts it uses (the table from step 1).
• How to do the three or four things you’ll need to do yourself: change a price, add a product, add a staff member, download your data.
• What it costs every month, and who pays each bill.

If the contractor can’t write that page, they can’t explain the work. If they can’t explain the work, nobody else can maintain it, and you’re stuck with them forever.

✅ Do this: Read the page, then do one of the tasks yourself while the contractor watches. If you can’t follow the instructions, they aren’t instructions yet.

5. Check the monthly bills (5 minutes)

Many tech jobs come with hidden subscriptions: a plugin here, a “pro” plan there, an automation tool that’s free until you pass some number of tasks.

Ask for the full list: tool, what it does, monthly cost, whose card pays it. Then check that each one is actually needed. Superhacker Man loves a subscription he never has to use himself.

The exit test

One last question, and the most revealing one: “If we stopped working together tomorrow, what would I need to keep this running?”

A good professional answers calmly, with a list. A bad one gets offended. The answer tells you everything about whether you bought a system or a dependency.

If you haven’t hired anyone yet, these checks start before the contract. Take the 9 questions to the first meeting and this check to the last one.

Thirty minutes, one notebook, zero lines of code. Be the anti-Gerald. Stay sceptical, stay solvent, and see you tomorrow for your next dose.