Start-up and small business owners are typically very passionate people. Passionate about one thing. The thing in which they are expert. That passion is necessary, even mandatory for success. Can you imagine wanting to start a photography business if you weren’t interested, even slightly, in making people happy by delivering remarkable photography?
The reality for start-up and small business owners is for them to be expert in many fields. Which is impossible. Do you think the CEO of any organisation can do the job of the line worker, their middle managers or even of other members of his C-suite? It is rare to be sure. Take for example Daimler Benz who in the early 1990’s promoted their head engineer to CEO. His first project was the new S-Class flagship model. The S-Class was the day car for billionaires who were far to busy to drive themselves. Dubbed the ‘land yacht’ because of its size across all three axes it was an impressive automobile. Which failed to sell.
Engineered to perfection it did not take into account what the market wanted. Plus it cost more than the BMW 7-series and allowed that marque into the luxury market at the ultra high end.
That’s what can happen when an ‘expert’ is put in charge of a business. The true challenge of a start-up or small business owner is to balance their skills between expert and business leader. Rarely does an expert get to spend more than 20% of their time doing what they love in their business (and I’m being very generous there). The rest of their time they are building the business; creating the framework and doing the do to make the business run.