Beer Mat Test your Online Business!

The first thing you need to do when you run your Beer Mat test for your online business is to go to a bar. The reason is that they have an endless supply of beer mats and also you want to be in a relaxed environment and let you mind wonder. Take a friend with you because you will get better results with a bit of banter. Take your laptop with and find a bar with wireless connection.

I like the Beer Mat test because it can be fun and its normally quite inspiring. For those who dont know what the Beer Mat test is, it is a simple calculation on your business idea to see if the money or market stacks up.

What should the equation look like?

You need to find out if the money that you get out covers the money and time that you put in. Or rather if the business makes more money than it spends. Work out a total revenue column and a total cost column.

Online businesses are amazing because you can have access to a wide range of markets right there in the bar. Start with some thing that interests you and use applications like

Google Trends
Quantcast
Alexa

to find out what the market is like and if there is enough traffic and money for you to take a slice of the action. You might find that specific niche that will give you thousands of clicks every month.

So lets say that your income is derived from clicks. Write down how many clicks you think you can generate every month from a particular market. Now write down what each click is worth. When you multiply these numbers you will see what your beer mat has to say about income.

Now work out how many clicks you need to do to make this a reality. Lets boil this down to time. If you write 30 words a minute and you need to write 2 articles a day with 400 words in them to make the number of clicks then you have the time it will take to make this business work.

After a couple of clicks and some research on the net, not to mention a couple of beers and probably a couple of Beer Mats you should have an online business plan that you can get to work on.