E-Myth

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E-Myth in the business vernacular refers to the Entrepreneurial Myth, and refers to the fact that most businesses fail because the founders are technicians that were inspired to start a business without knowledge of how successful businesses run.

The mythic and often disastrous assumption is that people who are experts regarding technical details of a product or service will also be expert at running that sort of business. Many small business owners eventually realize that just as they had to learn their technical skills, they have to learn business growth and management skills.

E-Myth is also used as a verb, i.e., to 'E-Myth your business' means to build internal systems that control processes as they do in a franchise operation, so that results are predictable. A result of systematizing workflow is that owners are freed from most daily operations to spend more time on strategic issues. The methodology was first articulated in the 1985 book The E-Myth by Michael E. Gerber who has since founded an organization called E-Myth Worldwide that promotes subsequent E-Myth publications as well as speaking events for Gerber.

E-Myth methods are taught in courses at Stanford [1], BYU [2] and Stetson University [3] and recognized by Entrepreneur Magazine [4], Forbes Magazine[5] and Inc. (magazine)[6] among others. In 2003 E-Myth entered the Fast Company (magazine) blogosphere [7].