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E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber


Rating: 8/10

Date Finished: WIP


To run a successful small business, one must balance the roles of technician, entrepeneur, and manager. Many people overindex on the role of technician.



Intro

  • E-Myth - Entrepreneurs are heroic. They risk money to make money

Your business is nothing more than a distinct reflection of who you are. If your thinking is sloppy, your business will be sloppy. If you are disorganized, your business will be disorganized. If you are greedy, your employees will be greedy, giving you less and less of themselves and always asking for more

Chapter 1

“Where was the entrepreneur who had started the business? The answer is simple: the entrepreneur had only existed for a moment”

  • ⭐ The Fatal Assumption - if I understand the technical work of a business, then I understand a business that does that technical work
    • The technician takes the work that they loves and turns it into a business. However, that business is not a business, it’s still a place to go to work
    • And the work that they originally enjoyed starts to feel like something they just have to get through so that they can figure everything else out

Chapter 2

  • ⭐ There are three personas to embody when running a business

    1. Entrepreneur - The dreamer, the futurist, the ideator
      • ⭐ He’s happiest when imaginging ‘what-if’ and ‘if-when’
    2. Manager - The person who organizes things. Makes sure logistics are in order. Keeps people in check, keeps things stable.
    3. Technician - Who actually gets the work done. Bakes the pies, writes the code, sells the clients. Often resents the manager and entrepeneur for getting in the way of the work that needs to be done

  • Most small business owners are 10% entrepeneur, 20% manager and 70% technician

    ⭐ To the technician, it’s a dream come true. The Boss is dead. But to the business it’s a disaster, because the wrong person is at the helm. The technician is in charge!

  • ⭐ The question at the heart of every entrepeneur is “I wonder. I wonder. I wonder.”

  • It’s time for me to challenge my imagination and start an entirely new life. It’s time to start an excitingly ambitious business

Chapter 3 - Infancy

  • Most businesses are operated by what the owner wants as opposed to what the business needs
    • The technician wants a place to go to work, uninterrupted, free from the constraints of the boss.
  • ⭐ The surefire sign that a business is in infancy: the company is the owner, the owner is the company. They are inseperable
  • ⭐ Along the lines, the company becomes the Boss, the Boss will never be fully gone
  • Pure technical work can still be flow-inducing and joyful but not at the cost of choosing to ignore learning to grow the business, or filling your day completely
  • A purpose of starting a business can be to create jobs for others. To fill a need that is not currently being met. To expand the experiences in one’s life

⭐ If all you want from a business of your own is the opportunity to do what you did before you started your business, get paid more for it, and have more freedom to come and go, your self-indulgence will eventually consume both you and your business

Chapter 4 - Adolescence

  • ⭐ Management by abdication - finally hiring someone, finally delegating something and then fully taking it off the brain, letting that person do it unsupervised. This will start to cause problems eventually

Chapter 5 - Beyond the Comfort Zone

  • The technician’s boundary is defined by how much he can do himself

  • The manager’s boundary is defined by how many technicians or sub-managers he can productively manage

  • The entrepreneur’s boundary is defined by how many managers he can persuade with his vision

  • Managerial best practices

    • Provide why people are doing what they’re doing
    • Provide the results that people are accountable for and the standards they are being judged by
    • Provide the longterm strategy - how does this action fit into the overall strategy of the business

  • A consistent practice of a technician-turned-business-owner is to “get small” again when things start to get out of control (downsize everything until you are comfortable with what you’re doing)

    • But this precedes a “you don’t own a business-you own a job” moment

  • On the other side, companies that continue to grow out of momentum and eventually spiral out of control are all too common (especially among high-tech startups)

    • Luck, speed and great technology are not enough. Someone is always luckier, faster or better with technology. Living on the fast track and depending on these qualities is not the way to go

  • ⭐ Morals from story about Elizabeth - make sure that your business can survive if someone leaves, make sure to keep people happy that you need

  • ⭐ True trust comes from knowing and not from blind faith

    • Almost all of us have been disappointed by someone we trust, often because we werent considerate enough, skilled enough or didn’t fully understand.

  • To fully understand, you must know:

    • What people want, what they don’t
    • What conditions are present
    • What people do, what they don’t
    • Who people are, who they’re not

  • ⭐ Ask yourself: how big can this business naturally become?

    • Any limitations placed on that growth are unnatural (especially getting small)
    • Instead a certain level of growth will be required to grow the business into something important
    • ⭐ ’I can’t go on like this’. To which Vladimir replies, ‘That’s what you think’

Simply put. Your job is to prepare you and your business for growth

  • You could have anticipated that growth would bring additional responsibilities, additional skills required, additional capital needed to respond to teh added demand that growth always places on a business and on people
  • Ask the questions at benchmark 1, 2, 3 (need to come up with benchmarks)
    • Where do I wish to be?
    • When do I wish to be there?
    • How much capital will that take?
    • How many people, doing what work, and how?
    • What technology will be required?
    • How large a space will be needed?
  • Most people don’t have a plan! Work towards a plan! It will often be wrong, but it’s so much better to have through the future than not to have
  • ⭐ Build a business that works without you

Chapter 6 - Maturity

  • Tom Watson’s reasons for IBM success

    1. Clear picture of what he wanted the company to look like in the future
    2. Asked himself how that company would act
    3. Applied how they would act on a daily basis (focused on reflecting on how they were acting in ways different than that)

  • ✳️ Entrepeneurial

  • *️⃣ Technician

  • ✳️ How must a business run

  • *️⃣ What work has to be done

  • ✳️ Business is a system to produce outside results for the customer, earning profits

  • *️⃣ Business produces internal work for the technicians to make a paycheck

  • ✳️ Starts with vision of the future, focuses on changing the present to fit that

  • *️⃣ Starts with vision of the present, uncertainty of future, wants to keep things the same

  • ✳️ Visualizes the business as a whole, with parts derived from that whole

  • *️⃣ Visualizes the pieces and builds up from there

  • ✳️ The future is modeled after his vision

  • *️⃣ The future is modeled after the present

  • With a technician in charge, work is done for works sake. There is no higher purpose or meaning, other than to do what needs to be done



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