The E-Myth model
Why every Startup is built seat first: each Role is written down before anyone fills it, an agent fills it, and you hold the approvals.
Michael Gerber's E-Myth says a small business stalls when its owner does every job and writes none of them down. A Startup here starts from the other end: every seat is written first, and an Agent fills it.
The seat, not the person
Gerber's rule is to define the job before anyone does it. Here that definition is the Role contract: why the seat exists, what judges it, its Limits and how much it does alone.
The contract belongs to the seat. Swap an agent for a person, or for another agent, and the seat keeps the same Verbs, Processes and numbers. Role contracts lists every part.
One seat, written down
Take the Billing Specialist on the Finance Team. Its contract fits in six lines:
| Part | The Billing Specialist |
|---|---|
| Why the seat exists | So every finished piece of work is billed, and every bill is collected |
| What judges it | How many days a bill waits to be paid |
| Its standard | Sends every Invoice within one business day of the work being done |
| What it does alone | Retries unpaid Invoices on the dunning schedule, under a Mandate |
| Where it stops | Refunds up to $100; a larger refund waits for an Approval |
| Who it hands to | Hands off to the Customer Lead, escalates to the Finance Lead |
Nothing in it names who fills the seat. An agent can hold it on the first day, and a person can take it in year two, under the same six lines.
Owner, manager, technician
Gerber names three jobs every business needs done at once. Each maps onto the chart.
| Gerber's job | Who holds it | What it does here |
|---|---|---|
| Owner, who works on the business | The Founder | Sets the Goals, answers the Approvals, rules on every escalation |
| Manager, who keeps it running | Each Team's lead | Owns the Team's Processes and Metrics, answers its seats' escalations |
| Technician, who does the work | Every other seat | Calls the Verbs its Role allows, to the contract's standard |
The founder is the only owner. The managers and technicians are agents unless you seat a person.
Who sits in each seat
Gerber's founder does every job first and hands them over one at a time. Here a role agent fills every seat from the first day, because the contract already says how the work is done.
You hold the Approvals, not the seats. Whatever crosses a seat's Limit, and every call the law reserves to a person, comes to you. You can still take a seat yourself, and the contract binds you as it bound the agent: see who fills a Role.
The business is the prototype
Gerber's franchise prototype is a business that runs the same way in anyone's hands. A Startup is that prototype as data: its Teams, Roles and Processes are records, so a Template copies the whole chart into the next Startup.
Each week you work on the prototype, not in it. Read the Role Reviews, answer the Approvals, and change a contract in one sentence when a seat misses.
Next
Part 3 of six chapters on how the business works. Work moves between seats as a Workflow. How a Workflow runs is next, with the Billing Specialist's own as the example.