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The Beermat Entrepreneur helps you convert your jotted notes about your business idea into a big and successful business. With wit and humour, this quick-to-read and simple-to-use book could turn your beermat inspiration into reality.

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.

Revised and updated completely, this classic book for entrepreneurs contains the distilled wisdom of serially successful entrepreneur Mike Southon and is packed with advice and insight for any aspiring business person, either within an existing company or thinking of starting up on their own.

  1. Where do I fit in?
  2. The seedling enterprise
  3. The sapling enterprise
  4. The mighty oak

Mike Southon

Mike co-founded The Instruction Set, a training and software business which grew from three to 150 people in five years and was then acquired by Cap Gemini Ernst and Young. He then worked on two start-ups which eventually both went public, and a number which didn’t. Since the first publication of The Beermat Entrepreneur in 2002 he has spoken at over a thousand events all over the world and provided free, face-to-face mentoring to over 1,500 aspiring entrepreneurs.

When he’s not being The Beermat Entrepreneur at live events, Mike helps any type of company refine their elevator pitches, test their sales models and grow their sales.

“Mike is more than Quite Interesting. He spreads insight and cheerfulness in equal measure, like an ambidextrous chef icing two cakes at once.” – John Lloyd, producer of QI, Not the Nine o’Clock News, Spitting Image and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Chris West

Chris is a professional writer. His first book, Journey to the Middle Kingdom, was published in 1991, and he has had over 20 books published since, in various genres. The Dragon Awakens is a quartet of crime novels set in 1990s China. Eurovision! tells the story of modern Europe through the lens of the Eurovision Song Contest. Perfect Written English is a guide to good, clear writing. he is co-author of the Beermat Guides to sales, finance and marketing for small businesses. He has also worked in the City, in marketing and PR for the Norwich-based MK group, and has advised start-up enterprises.

Chris works with subject-matter experts to turn their knowledge into lively, accessible books. He is a member of United Ghostwriters, a group of top professionals in this field.

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