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"In 1984, Anita Brattina quit her big corporate job, took her pension money and savings plan (and ultimately her credit cards), created an office at home and set up shop as an entrepreneur. It would be 1995 before she finally felt secure---certain that she had built a sustaining and profitable business.
In the 11 years between startup and security, Brattina kept a remarkable diary of her life and her struggle to grow her business. As is the case for most entrepreneurs, it was really a struggle to grow herself--the business simply mirrored her progress as she lurched forward or fell back. It didn't take long for Brattina to discover what it meant to leave the warmth of the corporate cocoon. On page 9 of her book she writes of the loneliness of the new entrepreneur: "moving from the connected ness of a thriving corporation to the isolation of working in the apartment was severe culture shock. No secretary, no phones ringing with incoming business, no using solid years of business to justify constant name recognition, no flood of mail from professional organizations, no phone calls from colleagues sharing ideas."
That passage exemplifies the tone and the value of this book. Brattina records not only the day-to-day ups and downs of her business, but the roller coaster of feelings that comes along with them.
She writes with regret about being talked into preparing a business plan: "Even after being in business for 11 years, I look back on my first business plan and feel sure that it was a waste of time. Instead of a business plan, I needed guidance narrowing my range of services, narrowing the list of business categories I wanted to market, guidelines and ideas about the pricing of my services. I wish she [her business instructor] had shown me how many $350 jobs I would have to make to earn $100,000 per year and then show me how to earn $100,000 if I were selling a $10,000 service." Brattina records in the diary, with brutal candor, her dreams, her successes, her frustrations, her fears and what she slowly comes to see as her business shortcomings.
An inability to delegate, for example, dogs her for almost a decade, and causes significant imbalance in both her business and her personal life. Looking back, she offers the following advice: "If I were going to do it over again, I would have asked my friend to track down companies with at least 15 employees where the founder is still running the company. To me, 15 employees can't be supervised by the owner alone. The challenges Brattina describes are close to being universal for new entrepreneurs--the struggle to understand the dynamics of cash flow, the hiring of new people too quickly, the difficulty in finding time and space to step back and reflect, and perhaps most challenging, the issue of focus. Five years into her odyssey, Brattina writes: "In some ways I had been running two businesses concurrently for the last five years: my business and the business my employees saw. My personal vision wasn't focused enough. I saw possibility in every idea. That meandering of vision dragged me through more trouble I needed to endure."
"Diary of a Small Business Owner" is a bare-souled account of the entrepreneurial path and an unusually compelling read. For those who are contemplating a similar journey, investing a few hours in this book may be the most important investment you can ever make. For those who have already set out, Brattina's book can help you cut through now to the critical choices around which successes may well evolve.
Every entrepreneur will see his dreams--and his struggles--mirrored in some way in this very remarkable book."
-The Atlanta Business Chronicle, February 16-22, 1996
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