August Book of the Month: The E Myth; Revisited ; Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It:
Lesson 1: Having great technical skills does not mean you know how to run a business.
4 out of 5 small businesses never make it past the 5-year mark, which is quite a depressing statistic. Why is that?
Gerber says it’s because of the entrepreneurial myth. People think being great at a technical skill also makes you great at running a business. This is just wrong.
Being a great baker, painter or writer, does not make you good at running a business in that industry. These are two entirely different things. In fact, I just recently learned that being a good writer doesn’t even make me a good freelancer.
Once you start a business, you’re not just the person doing the technical work, all of a sudden you’re also the CEO, CFO, CTO, CMO, and a whole bunch of other things.
You have to get customers, track and manage finances, create advertising material, answer customer requests, set a strategy, and, and, and…
If all you know is how to make great coffee, then your first café is very likely to fail – after all you have no clue how to hire, outsource tasks, manage people and grow a business!