Remember that another crucial aspect of a machine is that it isn’t you. It is a separate thing from you, and that means that it must be able to do what it is supposed to do without you.
Yes, you will still need to monitor it – like a car, it will need steering – but it will be doing 99% of the effort. You will be able to do other things, like steer or navigate a new course.
This machine requires two types of people:
- people doing things you can do
- and people doing things you can’t.
As you start out, you might be great at making and selling your cupcakes, which sounds like all you need to do, but even that early on you’ll need an accountant and book-keeper. And maybe a lawyer.
Whichever you are better at, making or selling, time spent doing the other already starts to distract, so you hire a baker. And then a sales manager, and then someone to manage the warehouse, the shipping and logistics.
Even before this stage, you might have a mentor who advises you on how to do business, who you ask about major decisions.
While the image that short business biographies by journalists like to create is of individual hero entrepreneurs going it on their own, the reality is that all businesses are a team effort. All businesses are people businesses.
Your business isn’t you and it will need to do things you can’t do, and won’t want to do. That will require other people to form a team.
Think about how that team is going to look. Think about who is going to help you with the things you can’t do, the things you won’t have time to do, and the things you won’t want to do because that will slow your business down.
Select these people. If you don’t know them already, select what kind of person they are, what kind of background they have, and what you need them to do.
Make sure that all of these people understand that the business isn’t them either. They will also have to prepare SOPs for their whole teams, so that their teams are able to function without them, so that every function is carried out as efficiently as possible.
The clearer jobs, roles, functions are defined, the more certainty everyone will have with their roles, making things efficient. Like a machine.
You should also consider who advises you on your project. Not just friends who support or criticise, but mentors who understand, people who might one day become an official board, who can help you think about the future.
Your machine will need all kinds of people in it to become truly efficient at creating value for people, and capturing it for you.
But you must remember, while building your people machine, that You Are Not A Machine.