
E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It - davidw
http://www.squeezedbooks.com/book/show/40/the-e-myth-revisited-why-most-small-businesses-dont-work-and-what-to-do-about-it
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nhebb
I thought the entire book could have been written in less than 10 pages. For
years I worked as a manufacturing engineer, so documenting your processes is
kind of second nature to me. On the other hand, I hated bureaucratic systems
like ISO 9000, so my advice is always to do the minimum necessary.

For startups, just keep simple documentation of essential processes. For
example, I rarely had to process refunds through PayPal, so I would forget how
to do it. I kept overlooking the refund link. So I made a screen shot, circled
the link, and saved it in my process documentation folder. Basic, but
effective.

For other processes, I have written documents, flowcharts, and checklists,
depending upon how complex the process is. If you have 1-2 people in your
company, you're doing it for your own benefit, so there's no need to be
formal.

~~~
hga
I read the first edition, and it had more than 10 pages worth of useful advice
including a fair amount of stuff besides the "document processes" advice
(although that was its biggest message).

One of the best was "make sure there's a head for every cap." I.e. there are a
lot of necessary roles in every small business (at the highest level, things
like marketing and sales, at a low level, say, backups); make sure every
important role is identified and assigned to _someone_.

It's still on my "top 5" list of books anyone starting up a company should
read.

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davidw
I just finished this book, and it's interesting, although somewhat less
targeted at startups than at small businesses. Indeed, some of the advice
contained seems to actually go against how I have always seen startups. For
instance, "operations manuals" are things best left until you are a Big
Company - better to spend time working on the product rather than worrying
about creating some kind of 'system' to make you replaceable. Indeed,
reflecting on this advice is an interesting way of considering the differences
between a real 'startup' and someone simply starting a business.

Anyone else read it? What'd you think?

~~~
dagw
"Operations manuals" sound like a scary bureaucratic thing that only big
companies have, but personally I think everybody needs them. It doesn't have
to be big and formal, it could simply be a wiki on the internal web site, but
somewhere all important steps and procedures should be documented. Even if no
one gets hit by a bus, having a check list on how important things work is
always handy to refresh your memory, especially if it's something you only do
a couple of times a year.

Also if you hire a new person, being able to point them to a place which
explains exactly how your company does version control or how your build
process works will save everyone a lot of time.

~~~
davidw
See above, but the message I got was that if you're a small restaurant or a
bike repair shop or something like that, _the_ thing to work on is the
'system', which means making it so you can drop new people in to grow by
handing them a manual which describes in detail how things are done.

I'm not so sure something like a tech startup is like that. What would have
been the point at replacing most founders early on? The whole point is
developing a product that scales with the 'hockey stick' curve, which is very
different from growing, say, a bike shop into a chain of 3 or 4 bike shops.

I agree completely with documenting things, but one is documenting stuff so it
doesn't get lost or have to be explained out-loud every time, to help people
get up to speed with things. The other is create a system for people to work
in that doesn't leave people much room to screw up, so that you can have
someone new up and flipping burgers in a day.

 _Edit_ \- the book makes a lot of sense in the context of a 'small business'
where the goal, often enough is to extract yourself from being the business
and make it run without you. Where I'm a bit more dubious is about startups...

~~~
theBobMcCormick
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought part of the idea was not so much to
replace the founder as it is to allow the founder to drop parts of their
responsibilities as you expand. I would think that would be applicable to most
startups.

