I finished E-Myth Revisited years back ... I'm now on E-Myth Mastery ... many of the concepts of his books requires practical experience, otherwise you might struggle to visualize his concepts ...
Following his concepts in the first book i had successfully created a small and profitable company now with about 8 employees ... i'm hoping to learn the skills required to bring my company to the next level! IPO, MNC, Big Corp, etc.
I've heard so much good about E-Myth Revisited but I'm not fully convinced that it's any different from all the other biz management literature I've read. Would love to hear what your major take aways are.
First, thinking like a technician is different from thinking like a manager is different from thinking like a business owner. You may have technical expertise, but that doesn't in and of itself teach you how to manage a business or how to build a business. Sometimes you have to switch hats. You'll almost certainly have to learn the difference between performing a skill, managing people, and building a business.
Second, building a sustainable business requires you to create good processes which allow you to get good results from average workers. Gerber calls this the franchise model. Even if you don't want to build a franchise, he argues that the technique works--this means getting knowledge out of the head of the one or two fantastic employees you have (the ones on whom the business relies) into documentation.
I ought to write up longer thoughts on the book. I found it frustrating to read but valuable nonetheless.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. The second idea struck a cord because this is essentially the basis for knowledge management, which I've been studying lately and find incredible useful as a source of inspiration on how to run a business.
I read "The E-Myth" years ago. I hate business books, but loved that one. It was not because of the writing; it could well be the worst-written book I have ever bought. But the guy clearly had a ton of practical experience, and his view of business really helped me think about entrepreneurship as an activity, not a theory.
It is one of the few books I wished I had 10 years ago and would have saved me aggravation.
Other books might teach it too, but how simply he explained the battle inside each entrepreneur between 3 opposing personalities (Technician, Manager, and Entrepreneur) is really eye opening, especially once you've been on the path for a bit.
One of the major takeaway from E-Myth is that i learnt the importance of business automation, e.g. creating organization charts, business operations manuals, financial reports, business metrics, etc.
I see it's from 1995. Is there something more updated? With the prominence of programming life-style businesses I'd imagine there are new things to be taught.
the problems are the same - technology can help you solve them, but fundamentally it's an issue of how to scale up in terms of people. Here's another one:
I took the time to recommend some books that were very specific to the thread at hand, that I had taken the time to read and evaluate. Getting a few extra dollars to buy more books with, that costs those clicking nothing, seems like a mutually beneficial transaction in that it makes me more likely to read some interesting books I can recommend in the future.
So: yes, they were. If you don't like them, don't click on them. If you think my account is a spam account, created for the purpose of spamming HN with affiliate links, feel free to report it to Paul Graham.
I don't have a problem at all that you put in the affiliate link and didn't even notice it.
Otoh I think the disclaimer that you made above is good and informs people of why you did what you did so it might be an idea to include it. If the parent thought that, I'm sure others did as well. (Of course this might encourage others to do the same who don't put the same effort in that you did to read and evaluate.)
This is somewhat similar to when someone at a store makes a suggestion and adds "I'm not on commission". Here you are saying "I am on commission but I use this product and can vouch for it". Nothing wrong with that.
(I'd like a suggestion on a learning rails book by the way.)
The free Rails Guide is pretty good, actually! You could also get the Rails book with Sam Ruby as an author, but I'm less enthusiastic about it these days, mostly due to the fact that Rails has grown so much, so it covers a smaller set of the system, less comprehensively than it used to.
Some of the best books in any subject are often timeless.
The book lays out a systemic formula for making your business grow and run more and more with out you so you can work on your business, instead of your business.
Also this book has been updated I believe from time to time. It's not worth worrying about in this case because it's not opinion based advice, or based on current trends.
