The Beermat Entrepreneur: Turn Your Good Idea into A Great Business

The Beermat Entrepreneur: Turn Your Good Idea into A Great Business

by Mike Southon (Author), Chris West (Author), Chris West (Author), Mike Southon (Author)

Synopsis

"I recommend this to "any "aspiring entrepreneur." "Charles Dunstone, Founder, Carphone Warehouse" So, you're sitting in the pub with friends or colleagues and you have a brilliant idea. This time it's really brilliant. It's the foundation of a potentially very large and successful business. Do you just go home and leave the scrawled-on beermat in the pub? Or is this it - time to really make it happen? Problem is, you've no idea where to start. Who do you need to talk to? How do you find the cash to back the idea? How many people do you need to work with to the idea off the ground? And how on earth do you find them? Mike Southon has been there, and in "The Beermat Entrepreneur "he tells you exactly how to convert those jotted notes into a big and successful business. Step-by-step, with no jargon, no complex theory and no visits to arrogant pinstriped venture capitalists who aren't really interested in just 'an idea.' "The Beermat Entrepreneur "is a practical guide to starting and building a business. You begin with a bright idea, sketched out on a beer mat in the pub one evening. You end with a major company employing hundreds of people and a bank balance to match.Available in book form or in audio book (CD or cassette), featuring the authors recorded live in front of an audience of businesspeople. "!you can only benefit from reading this book. You'll gain valuable advice and knowledge from people who have seen it, done it and bought the T-shirt." The Evening Standard

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
Edition: 1
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Published: 07 Mar 2002

ISBN 10: 0273659294
ISBN 13: 9780273659297

Media Reviews
'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. I came out liking the authors and wishing they hadn't retired so they could come and run one of my companies.' Simon Woodroffe, Founder of Yo Sushi! in Management Today 'Mike and Chris understand with unusual clarity what drives a start-up.'Tim Smit, Founder, The Eden Project 'Refreshing and very readable.' Richard Donkin, Financial Times '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 'Provocative, down-to-earth and witty, too -- if you're looking for an antidote to the smoke and mirrors of the dotcom era, this is it!' Nayyer Hussain, Co-founder, McGeoch Techonolgy 'The Beermat Entrepreneur is honest and practical, and it works.' Steve Packard, original publisher of Trivial Pursuit and founder of whereonearth.com'An embarrassingly accurate picture of entrepreneurs -- I went round the office reading out sections, and people laughed out loud.' Peter Hall, Founder, The Wadenhoe Consultancy 'I recommend this book to any aspiring entrepreneur.' Charles Dunstone, Founder, Carphone Warehouse 'It's all here!' Phil Tee, Founder, RiverSoft PLC 'At times provocative but unpretentious, the author challenges the conventional wisdom of other business books on this subject. Passionate about his beliefs, the book is witty and amusing. For example, having discussed the pros and cons of various sources of finance, Southon asks: Are there any other sources of cash? and responds: There's always organised crime, I suppose, but the debt collection methods are a bit radical. This is a book not just for entrepreneurs. Based on the author's real life experiences at the sharp end and packed full of wisdom and wit, there is much in this book for managers of whatever ilk and their employees to learn and enjoy.' Ian MacEacheran FCMI ...you can only benefit from reading this book. You'll gain valuable advice and knowledge from people who have seen it, done it and bought the T-shirt. Evening Standard The Beermat Entrepeneur has become a bestseller because it sets out the key stages of a business' growth clearly and describes exactly what needs to be done for it to flourish. Such plain speaking in business books is unfortunately rare. EN, Manchester Among the many excellent qualities of the Beermat Entrepeneur is its thoroughly practical, no-nonsense, anecdote-free approach...jam packed with solid advice you seldom see in other books. Training Journal ...a modern thinking manual full of smart media concepts. Word Magazine, June 2005
Author Bio
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 writer and journalist. His China Quartet of mysteries is published in Asia, the USA, the UK and Europe. He also works in PR and marketing, and is currently involved in his own start-up enterprise.