Jim Correll, director Fab Lab ICC at Independence Community College, Independence Kansas 

I’ve learned that most entrepreneurial concepts are timeless, mostly, I think because they have to do with human behavior and human thinking. So, many books about essential entrepreneurial mindset skills are current, even if they’ve been around for a while. Such is the 1995 book called “EMyth Revisited” by Michael E. Gerber.  

I went to work for Independence Community College back in 2006 after then president Terry Hetrick had a vision for a nuts and bolts entrepreneurship program to help community members develop and grow their businesses. Dr. Hetrick wanted a program that was “nuts and bolts” as opposed to academic so he sought not an academic professor or MBA to run the program but, apparently, someone like me. I had owned a couple of small businesses and then worked in manufacturing about a decade in two different Boeing supplier companies. I had only one semester of accounting, but learned the rest along with other management skills through ten years in the photography business in Garden City from 1976 through 1986. In the two manufacturing companies, I worked in accounting, production and inventory control, scheduling and even manufacturing planning. Nearly all the learning was on-the-job and much of it came the hard way, through experience and making mistakes. I often joke that I got this job because of all the different work experience and the fact that I couldn’t stick to one career. Now, I believe all that experience, plus the knowledge of nearly twelve years at ICC have set me up for what I’m doing today. We have Fab Lab ICC now, but the original vision of Dr. Hetrick to help community members develop and grow their businesses is still at the core of everything we do. 

I have no major regrets about the way my career stacked up; indeed, the opportunity to be involved in the creation and development of Fab Lab ICC and its potential to help people from all walks of life is an extreme privilege and honor. I have one minor regret. Until a few years ago, I always thought I was too busy to read regularly.  

I did not discover “The EMyth Revisited” until a few years ago, some 15 years after it was published in 1995. Even that version was an update of the original “EMyth” in 1986. The subtitle is “Why Most Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It.” Gerber, an author and business coach does a great job explaining why so many small businesses fail, often when the owners become burned out after several years of working so hard. 

He makes a point that every business needs an entrepreneur, a manager and a technician. The entrepreneur watches out for new business opportunities and is concerned about making the business so good that customers prefer it over competitors. The manager takes care of the day to day administrative details of running the business; cash flow, accounts receivable and payable, inventory and other activities not directly related to providing products and services to customers. The technician in a business is the one that is directly responsible for taking care of customers.  

The key to a business being sustainable in the future depends on the entrepreneur always looking for new business opportunities and the manager working to “systematize” the day to day operation. In very small businesses, the owner has to be all three. Many get caught up in wearing only the technician’s hat, working long hours just to satisfy customers. This can go on year after year while the entrepreneur and manager hats sit on the shelf. When this happens, sales diminish and eventually burnout takes over and the business closes. 

There are ways the small business owner can learn to wear all three hats, building a sustainable business with processes that run smoothly. I’ve recommended this book on several occasions to small business owners struggling to make more than a “wage-rate” living from their businesses. We are working hard to run Fab Lab ICC like a business and implement the “EMyth” principles even though they are approaching 25 years old. Even businesses involved in the latest technology need to incorporate these timeless principles.