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Estimating, Step-by-Step
The best way to learn EstimatesPlease is through an easy, step-by-step
example.
You're the proud owner of a new bike shop and are trying to
figure out how much profit you'll be making a day.
You expect
to sell about 5 bikes a day (give or take 1), at between $50 and
$75 profit each. In addition, you may rent a bike a day with $40
profit--but maybe you won’t.
We have to translate your situation into a form EstimatesPlease
can understand. This is simple as you
can almost enter your
equations in plain English.
| This... |
...Translates
into This (Enter This) |
| You
expect
to sell about 5 bikes a day (give or take 1)... |
Approximately
5 (+-20%) |
| ...at
between $50 and $75 profit each. |
*
Between 50 and 75 |
| In
addition, you may rent a bike a day with $40 profit--but
maybe you won’t. |
Possibly
+
40 |
After you've entered your
equation, click =.
Your screen will look like this:
(Click for larger image)
You'll notice two things:
First, that this is the screenshot from our home page.
Second--and no less important--that EstimatesPlease returned
five estimates for your result. These range from the "lowest-possible-case" estimate to the
"highest-possible-case" estimate.
What exactly does that mean in our example?
| This... |
...Means
This |
| LOW:
200 |
You
would make $200 a day if..."about 5 bikes"
turns out to be 4, "between
$50 and $75 profit" turns out to be $50 and "may
rent a bike a day with $40 profit" turns out to be
no bikes rented.
("lowest-possible-case" estimate) |
| HI:
490 |
You
would make $490 a day if..."about 5 bikes"
turns out to be 6, "between
$50 and $75 profit" turns out to be $75 and "may
rent a bike a day with $40 profit" turns out to be
a bike rented.
("highest-possible-case"
estimate) |
| AVG:
345 |
You
would make $345 a day.
(the
average of the "lowest-possible-case" estimate
and the
"highest-possible-case" estimate)* |
| LOW-AVG:
272.5 |
You
would make $272.50 a day.
(the average of the "lowest-possible-case" estimate
and AVG)* |
| HI-AVG:
417.5 |
You
would make $417.50 a day.
(the average of the
"highest-possible-case" estimate and AVG)* |
You decide if you want to be cautious, optimistic or
somewhere in the
middle.
Can your calculator do that?
* AVG, LOW-AVG
and HI-AVG are secondary estimates based upon the
"hard" estimates LOW and HI.
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