Product Description

"I recommend this book to any aspiring entrepreneur" Charles Dunstone, Founder, Carphone Warehouse.

Beermat Entrepreneur became an instant bestseller on publication in 2002. It has helped tens of thousands of people thinking about starting a business to understand how to turn a good idea into a great business.

In the three years since Beermat Entrepreneur was originally published, Mike Southon and Chris West have met literally thousands of people at every stage of starting up, from thinking about it through to growing businesses. The experiences and feedback of these people has overwhelming supported the Beermat methodology. In this edition, the authors have distilled the feedback from entrepreneurs to fine tune Beermat so that it offers exactly what entrepreneurs are looking for. The new edition offers more advice on working with a bank to your greatest benefit, more info on how to grow your business, and much needed advice on what to expect and how to handle the 20-plus employee stage.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #130434 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

From the Back Cover

"This book, for me, says it all…It should become standard reading for all employees, managers and founders of start-up businesses."
Professor Sir Christopher Evans OBE, Founder, Merlin Biosciences

"Mike and Chris understand with unusual clarity what drives a start-up."
Tim Smit, Founder, The Eden Project

"What I really liked about this book was that it was easy to read. There are too many half-finished books by my bed that would have helped get me there years ago if I had just finished them. Yet I read Beermat in just one sitting; I enjoyed the book and related to it."

 Simon Woodroffe, Founder of Yo Sushi!

"Refreshing and very readable."

Richard Donkin, Financial Times

You’ve got a bright idea. An idea that you think maybe, just maybe, could become a brilliant business. But what next? The Beermat Entrepreneur is the answer. It takes you through all the crucial stages between those first notes on a beermat and a business that is sound, lasting and profitable. It tells you what the other books don’t – the lessons that most people have to learn by bitter experience; the tricks that all entrepreneurs wish somebody had told them before they set out.

From testing your idea and finding a mentor, through selecting and motivating the right people and securing your first customer, to deciding when to ‘go for growth’ – this is the guide to turning good ideas into real businesses.

This new second edition reveals the entrepreneur’s Magic Question – what it is and what it can do for you, plus the most common problems encountered by start ups and what to do about them before they happen to you! Containing the distilled wisdom of serially successful entrepreneur Mike Southon, The Beermat Entrepreneur is packed with both sound advice and expert insight.

A royalty on the sale of this book will be paid to The Prince's Trust, Registered Charity No. 1079675, through its subsidiary trading company.

About the Author
Mike Southon is a serially successful entrepreneur.  He co-founded The Instruction Set, an open systems consultancy in 1984, and sold the company five years later to what is now Cap Gemini Ernst & Young.  Mike has since been involved in seven start-up ventures, responsible for sales and marketing as well as helping to secure funding from venture capitalists.  Mike is very active as an independent consultant, and has been a keynote speaker at conferences all over the world for Microsoft, IBM, Novell, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and many others.  He has been a visiting lecturer at City Univeristy Business School since 1992. 

Chris West is a professional writer, with a background in marketing and PR. He has written novels, including the award-nominatedDeath of a Blue Lantern, and non-fiction, including (as co-author) Think like an Entrepreneur. He also teaches business and writing skills. Chris has many years experience of start-ups and small business, and has lectured on the subject in the UK, mainland Europe and the USA.

Customer Reviews

The Foundations Stones to a Successful Business Idea
Read This Book if you are thinking about turning one of those ideas into something more than an idea! Mike and Chris have written a book that is very readable. Well written and contains great ideas such as how to structure your company, whom to involve, where to network, how to network. What Foundation Stones or 'cornerstones' as Mike refers to them are required.

The Key Learning Point for me was to getting a Finance Cornerstone and Sales Cornerstone involved. Why is this Key? Because without 'sales' your dead in the water. And without 'Cashflow' and 'Cashflow' management your Dead in the Water too! Debt is not good!

Enjoy this book, and join us at a BeerMat Monthly Event in UK and who knows maybe into Europe and the wider world soon.

Take Care,
Ian

Get Started - NOW!
You're in the pub with your friends when a brilliant idea hits you. In lack of paper you use the back of a beermat to write down your ideas. The next day you come out of the hangover and, to your surprise, yesterday's brilliant idea still sounds great.

Congratulations. You've just passed the first hurdle of becoming a Beermat Entrepreneur. Now what?

The answer is in this book. It leads you step by step to a successful entrepreneurship. Apart from tips, the book also describes these aforementioned hurdles from time to time, to test if you're really serious about things. It's an inspiring book, easy to read and with a firm dose of reality ("forget your number one hobby, you won't have time for it").

Mike Southon is clearly the most important one of the two writers. He has massive experience that he shares with you: one of his beermat enterprises became a business success after five years of hard work, and he sold his share for a fair amount of money. His next enterprise was not the business success he had hoped for, but a very valuable learning experience. Since then, Mike has facilitated the start-up of seven Beermats, so he has quite some experience to draw from.

Also nice: a British book. Business culture in Europe is just not the same as it is on the other side of the ocean, from where most business books come.

Highly recommended. I say this for a reason: one of the participants in the business course I teach has used this book as a guide to start up his own business. I do believe it will be a success.

Useful Read for entrepreneural minds
It is often found that those with entrepreneural desires are more 'hands-on' types, who cannot resist being 'all-over' while starting an enterprise. This book is a good read for such individuals. It tells you the best ways to survive during the seedling and sapling stages before you get to the mighty oak stage. It emphasises how important it is to have a good mentor in the initial stages of the enterprise and how you must have the four cornerstones to ensure you do not end up being a jack of all trades!

Currently I work for a company but the day I decide to start something of my own, I will surely re-read this book before I take the first step.