Michael E.Gerber

some sort. Statistics tell us that by the end of the first year at least 40 percent of them will be out of business.1

Within five years, more than 80 percent of them—800,000—will have failed.

And the rest of the bad news is, if you own a small business that has managed to survive for five years or more, don’t breathe a sigh of relief.

Because more than 80 percent of the small businesses that survive the first five years fail in the second five.

Why is this?

Why do so many people go into business, only to fail?

What lesson aren’t they learning?

Why is it that with all the information available today on how to be successful in small business, so few people really are?

This book answers those questions.

It’s about four profound ideas, which, if you understand and take them to heart, will give you the power to create an extraordinarily exciting, and personally rewarding, small business.

Ignore them, and you will likely join the hundreds of thousands of people every year who pour their energy and capital—and life—into starting a small business and fail, or the many others who struggle along for years simply trying to survive.

IDEA #1 There is a myth in this country—I call it the E-Myth—which

says that small businesses are started by entrepreneurs risking capital to make a profit. This is simply not so. The real reasons people start businesses have

This book, then, is a product of the last fifteen years, as well as a product of the fifteen years that preceded them. It was almost exactly eight years before The E-Myth was published that I founded our company, E-Myth Worldwide, which has provided the fuel and experience for the point of view I have shared with those of you who have read The E-Myth, and with those of you who are about to read this book.

In the years since The E-Myth was published, many of my readers—as well as many of our small business clients—have asked me to clarify specific aspects of The E-Myth point of view so they could better apply it to their businesses. This book answers many questions that The E-Myth has raised over the years, offering both new and previous readers the opportunity to approach their businesses with renewed vigor and a sharpened mindset through an expanded experience of The E-Myth principles.

Toward that end, I have attempted to answer the most important questions I have been asked about the principles covered in each chapter by means of a running dialogue with a wonderful woman named Sarah (not her real name) with whom I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the past year. Sarah’s experience in business, her patience, intelligence, and passion have helped me to address the

A mediocre plan that you (and others) feel passionately about will serve you better than a technically superior plan that you don’t feel strongly about.