Beermat Entrepreneur CD (Red Audio) [Audiobook] [Audio CD]

Mike Southon (Author)

Book Description

Series: Red Audio | Publication Date: October 28, 2002

Join the original Beermat Entrepreneurs, Mike Southon and Chris West, live on stage in front of an audience of entrepreneurs as they talk about the essential stages in turning a good idea into a great business. This Live recording is also available as an Audio Cassette. Also available soon will be an Executive version, The Beermat Entrepreneur Masterclass, consisting of a set of 6 CDs featuring case studies and including an exclusive interview with Bill Gates. About The Beermat Entrepreneur "I recommend this book 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. "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

Editorial Reviews

Review

'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" --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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. 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.

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Pearson Education (October 28, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0273663798
• ISBN-13: 978-0273663799
• Product Dimensions: 5.7 x 4.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,406,658 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Trumps the U.S. Competition, September 23, 2002

By 

Robert I. Sutton "Stanford Professor and Author" (Stanford University, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Beermat Entrepreneur: Turn Your Good Idea into a Great Business (Paperback)

After living in and doing management research in Silicon Valley for the past 20 years, my first reaction to this book was: How can Americans possibly learn anything about entrepreneurship from authors based in the United Kingdom? I was wrong. This is the most concise, complete, and engaging book you can read about how to grow a company. It is also might be the only charming book on entrepreneurship ever written. The Beermat Entrepreneur trumps the competition. Southon and West dispense with the annoying hype that fills so many management books. Instead, they give sound and useable advice about what every founder can and should do to build a great company. Not only that, this concise book is a joy to read. I teach management and entrepreneurship at Stanford University, and if I were to advise an aspiring company founder in any part of the world to read just one book, this would be it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for the serious entrepreneur, September 26, 2002

By 

Don Britton (Reston, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Beermat Entrepreneur: Turn Your Good Idea into a Great Business (Paperback)

I have a business that I started myself and with the help of a great team have developed it into a successful business over the past five years. The authors view points from the startup (seedling) stage all the way to becoming a large (mighty oak) organization are very insightful and done from the perspective of someone that has truly been there and done that. Most business startup books I have read tend to take you way off base into textbook theories that is just that, theories. The Beermat Entrepreneur is for the real entrepreneur that truly wants good practical advice on how to get a business from an idea on a napkin (beermat) in the bar to a successful business.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't Waste Your Money, October 7, 2002

By 

Gerge Hestanzui (London) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Beermat Entrepreneur: Turn Your Good Idea into a Great Business (Paperback)

It's been a long time since I have seen such a simplistic business book. Rigid rules about how to succeed in business always make me leery. The authors should know better than to try to apply them to business situations. The book is also unrealistic because most start-up entrepreneurs won't be able to find a mentor to guide them through every step, procure sales for them, and introduce them to wealthy and powerful allies and investors.

The book is basically a fantasy of wishful thinking.