The E-Myth Revisited
The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber is the quintessential book for any entrepreneur
thinking of starting a business. Michael Gerber is the “world’s number one small business
guru”. He is the founder and chairman of company that assists small business owners in
developing and growing their companies. In The E-Myth Revisited, Gerber attempts to
give entrepreneurs a step-by-step guide to perfecting whatever enterprise they are
attempting to start.
To better understand the book, one must understand what the e-myth is. According to
Gerber (1995) “ The E-Myth is the myth of the entrepreneur or the entrepreneur myth. It
runs deep in this country and rings of the heroic… The legend reeks of nobility, of lofty,
extra human efforts of a prodigious commitment to larger than life ideals.”(pg.9) The
E-Myth runs throughout American society. The entrepreneur is a person that is envied in
American society. They are those that strike out on their own and become their own boss.
They have courage and fortitude. However, very frequently this courage and risk leads to a
failure. Gerber sites the reason of this failure as The Fatal Assumption, which is when one
understand technical work they will understand a business that does technical work.
Gerber attempts to rectify The Fatal Assumption by explaining the American small
business, the new view on business, and how to build a small business that works.
As told by Michael Gerber, the American small business can be classified by three
different people and four different stages. The entrepreneur, the technician, and the
manager are three distinct business people rolled up into one person. Each personality is
needed to run a small business. According to Gerber, the technician is the doer, the
entrepreneur is the dreamer, and the manager is the planner. These personalities need to
work in tandem to have a successful business. Gerber’s description of these distinct
personalities and what they do within the business was vivid and rang of truth. Each of
these personalities, when not kept in check, will run a business to the ground. The
technician, manager, and the entrepreneur each have a stage of the business life cycle.
Gerber believes that each small business has an infancy, adolescence, beyond the comfort
zone, and maturity. These are all dominated by a distinct rule by either the technician,
manager, or entrepreneur. Though there are four stages, not all businesses can make it to
them. According to Gerber (1995) “ the tragedy is that the condition of Infancy and
