Interest in successful small businesses continues to grow, but is influenced by the different ways in which small businesses are categorised and the difficulty of defining ?success?. There is a range of criteria associated with success in terms of individual owner characteristics, organisational values and performance measures. However, few researchers have consulted owner/managers about their views on success. This research is instructive in that it used a grounded theory approach to investigate success in small service sector organisations. The impact of education, training, development, prior knowledge and experience on the success of these businesses was investigated. Four substantive categories were developed, but only one category showed clear evidence that education and training had a positive effect on the success of the business. Most businesses relied heavily on prior knowledge and experience. The properties, personal characteristics of the owner-manager and some hypotheses were also developed for each category.