Like many of my classmates have indicated, I have a lot more in the way of plans and presentations that I do actual organizational capacity. That's not unexpected, though--we're all students starting with an idea and building around it, so of course the plans will come first. The ability to plan ahead and see the organizational capacity we'll need to develop, however, is one of the biggest differences between a new entrepreneur and an experienced one. The experienced entrepreneur already has a sense of what the organization will need to look like in the near and not so near future, which would give him/her better guidance in what needs to be done to get there. For new entrepreneurs, however, everything is completely novel.
Being in the new entrepreneur camp, this is something I find the most difficult. When speaking with people about what I'm trying to do with onlyinpgh, I feel very comfortable--as Professor Zak has stated in the past, we are all the world's leading expert in our venture. When talking about the mechanics of how I'm going make it happen, though, I quickly lose confidence. I've never led an organization before, and given that there are no policies or procedures to fall back on, I feel like I'm moving forward by the seat of my pants.
I've read a couple of books that have been helpful in this regard. One in particular is "The E-Myth Revisited" by Michael E. Gerber which suggests laying out the organizational structure from day one and filling it with names as the company progresses. Another I've recently purchased is "The HR Toolkit for Dummies" which has a lot of great information on how to do all the nitty-gritty admin and HR stuff we'll need to do when starting to hire employees. The hardest part, though, is finding time setup all the organizational infrastructure in advance of actually having people.
Anyone have any suggestions for how to carve out time for building capacity?
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