I first heard about this book when reading "The first 20 hours" by the same author (also a very good book). The main premise of "The Personal MBA" is that any individual could get the education equivalent to an MBA by reading a bunch of business books and testing their knowledge in the workforce, and that a formal MBA is unnecessary. The purpose of this book is to provide a good foundation with which to start building one's business education and to this end the book is structured very efficiently.
First, the book posits that there are 5 key components that make a business, and without any one of these, a business would not exist.
They are:
- Value Creation
- Marketing
- Sales
- Value Delivery
- Finance
The book is 11 chapters in length. Chapters 1-5 are on the topics listed above. Chapters 6-8 are on human psychology, with chapter 7 being about efficiently working with yourself and 8 about working with others. Chapters 9-11 are about systems and how to understand, refine and improve them.
I wish I could point to a particular chapter or concept and say "that one really stood out", but I enjoyed almost all of them (admittedly I did not favour the chapters on marketing and sales, because I am less personally interested in marketing and sales). The book is filled with small gems like the proper way to calculate the allowable acquisition cost for a customer, and when I see a business going to great lengths to attract customers relative to other businesses, I now have a better idea why it makes sense in context.
That I think is ultimately what I gained from the book, that when I hear Jocko Willink say "discipline is freedom," I have some idea what he means by the value of adding SOPs. When discussing business with new acquaintances, I ask better questions. When reading a new book (such as "Zero to One" by Peter Thiel), I think I can grasp the concepts on value creation more easily. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in starting a business or who simply wants to work in one.