Hero
A small-business field memoir

Lessons From the Front Lines

Insights from 40 years on the battlefield of small business — the hires, the gambles, the lean months, and what it really takes to keep the doors open.

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Lessons From the Front Lines cover
Book cover
40 years · one small business · every lesson

Lessons From the Front Lines

The hires, the gambles, the lean months, and what it really takes to keep the doors open — straight from someone who lived it.

Buy on Amazon — $24.99 What's inside
A note before you start

“Forty years ago I opened a small business with more nerve than sense. This is everything I wish someone had told me first.”

Kurt Schauermann
Buy on Amazon What's inside
Book cover

Lessons From the Front Lines

Insights from 40 years on the battlefield of small business.

What you'll take away

Hard-won answers to the questions that keep owners up at night.

No theory, no jargon — just the lessons that only show up after you've been doing this a while.

01
Hiring people who stay
How to spot the ones who show up — and keep them once you have them.
02
Pricing without apology
Charging what the work is worth and stopping the race to the bottom.
03
Surviving the lean months
Reading cash flow early and making payroll when the numbers say you can’t.
04
Leading while learning
Running a team when you’re still figuring half of it out yourself.
05
When to grow
Knowing the difference between a real opportunity and an expensive ego trip.
06
Building to last
Creating something steady enough to outlast you — and worth handing off.
author headshot
About the author

Kurt Schauermann

Kurt spent four decades building and running a small business from the ground up — through good years and brutal ones. He's hired, fired, made payroll when the numbers said he couldn't, and learned most of what's in this book the hard way.

He wrote Lessons From the Front Lines for the owner who's in the thick of it right now — the one who could use a straight answer from someone who's already been there.

Read the first chapter free

Drop your email and I'll send you Chapter One — then you can decide for yourself.

Ready now? Grab the paperback or Kindle edition.

Buy on Amazon — $24.99