A playbook for those who want to take operational control of their AI destiny.
By Eric Goeres
The concept of Dawn of the Dashboard Business
This book is an invitation to stop thinking like a worker and start thinking like an operator. Dawn of the Dashboard Business shows you how to build a one-person, AI-powered company that runs through systems, automations, and dashboards — not through constant hustle-culture effort.
Instead of doing the work, you learn how to build the machine that does the work. Your role shifts to strategist, orchestrator, and observer. You spend your time checking the gauges, making smart adjustments, and letting the system hum along.
At the center of this book is a simple but powerful premise: AI tools allow a single person to do what once required a team. With AI, automation, and real-time dashboards, you can run a business that creates value continuously, while you’re doing something else entirely. The book walks you through how to design that infrastructure deliberately, so your business becomes something you operate, not something that consumes you.
And here’s the key insight: there are two outcomes when you do this work. Either you build a profitable, automated business that gives you leverage, flexibility, and control … or you emerge with a portfolio of real AI work product and operational thinking that makes you extraordinarily attractive in the job market.
In other words, even if the business itself never becomes your long-term vehicle, you still walk away as a highly credible AI practitioner who knows how modern, AI-first operations actually work. Some people will walk away with both a business and a job.
The author’s perspective comes from experience.
Eric Goeres is a career executive in digital innovation who has spent more than 20 years building and operating enterprise-level, dashboard-driven businesses. Dawn of the Dashboard Business distills those principles, incorporates 2026 AI tools, and makes them accessible to solo operators, independent professionals, and anyone who wants agency in an AI-shaped future.
This is not a book about passive income or shortcuts. It is a playbook for taking operational control—of your business, your skills, and your relevance. Whether your goal is independence, optionality, or career resilience, Dashboard Business shows you how to build something real—and how to future-proof yourself in the process.
“You can get ahead of a fast-moving wave that is transforming business.”
Our list of books essential to business success.
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The 24-Step Process for IDE's
“Disciplined Entrepreneurship” by Bill Aulet
Coming out of MIT, Professor Bill Aulet codifies a 24-step process for getting an Innovation-Driven Enterprise (IDE) out of your mind and out into the market. The process is smart, it’s systematic, and it’s inherently doable. This is one of those times where you realize the danger is in not doing it this way. -
OPM
“The Customer Funded Business” by John Mullins
John Mullins deep-dives on business models which use Other People’s Money (OPM) to fund the company. Frameworks for pay-in-advance, matchmaker, subscription services, SaaS, service-to-product revenue structures are explained in detail. -
Work ON your business
“The E-Myth Revisited” by Michael Gerber
The E-Myth encourages readers to view their businesses as “money machines.” The job of the entrepreneur is then to nurture the machine, not work in/at the business. -
Meet 4DX
“The 4 Disciplines of Execution” by Chris McChesney
This is an excellent follow-up to “The Great Game of Business.” The authors provide an execution framework based on setting one (or at most, two) goal(s) and focusing everyone & everything on it intently. “Leading measures” — KPIs which show progress and predict success against that goal — are created. This is supported by scoreboards/game dynamics and enetrprise-wide accountability. -
Open Book Business
“The Great Game of Business” by Jack Stack
Jack Stack prescribes “open book” management (i.e., opening the financials to all employees and making sure they understand the numbers) coupled with performance bonuses and game dynamics (e.g. goals, competitions, scoreboards, prizes). Results? A highly motivated work force of problem solvers and high achievers. -
EOS™
“Traction” by Gino Wickman
Wickman brings us “EOS:” The Entrepreneurial Operating System, with six management silos: your vision, your people, your issues, your data, your processes, and … “traction.” Includes a set of nifty worksheets to chart your course to business success. -
Growth by Design
“Scaling Up” by Verne Harnish
Verne provides the system of all systems. It starts with the Rockefeller Habits applied across four management silos: people, strategy, execution, and cash. It’s genius, intense, and proven, with even niftier worksheets to plan it all out. My copy has fallen apart due to over-reading. -
OKRs over KPIs
“Measure What Matters” by John Doerr
Doerr presents his case for OKRs (Objectives & Key Results) over KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) by showing how OKRs are implemented at Google and others, with management lessons courtesy of Andy Grove and Bill Campbell. (Cheat here)