Concept
The technician trap
The technician trap is Michael Gerber's name for the business that runs entirely on its founder's craft: every loaf, appointment or translation passes through their hands, so it cannot grow past their hours or survive their holiday. The owner has bought a job.
Gerber says every business needs three people, the technician who does the work, the manager who plans and keeps records, and the entrepreneur who decides where it is going, and that in a business of one they are all the founder. The technician who starts a business does the work all day, the manager's job badly at night, and the entrepreneur's job never, because there is no time. The sign of the trap is that nothing happens unless the owner does it. Paul Jarvis draws the line Gerber does not: staying small is fine; being trapped is not. The difference is whether the business could run for a week without you, and the way out begins with asking what it would look like if it did.
A real-life example
A physiotherapist opens a clinic, is fully booked within two months, treats patients eight hours a day, does invoices at night, and cannot take a week off because nobody else can see his patients. He calls it success; it is a job at higher rent.
How to use it
- 1Count the hours you gave each of the three roles this week; if it was all technician, you are in the trap.
- 2Write what would break if you were ill for a week; that is your dependency list.
- 3Give the entrepreneur's question one hour a week: what would this look like without me?