I’ve posted here before on BizEquity, the “Zillow of small business valuation” site offering quick estimates of business valuation.

BizEquity founder Tom Taulli — a true expert in the field — has added some interesting new tools for the site. Most notably, a valuation wizard that can take your inputs and give you a quick and dirty estimate of what your business is worth.

I did a test run over the weekend, by inventing hypothetical numbers for an Internet company. I had it started just three years ago, growing sales to $350,000. It had little or no profits, a bit of debt, and a lot of dependence on the owner (the site’s auto wizard asked me the right questions). The estimate ended up at about $275,000, with interesting variations above and below that depending on how I set several sliders. You probably can’t read the details in the shrunken illustration below, but the sliders are asking how favorable the location is, the level of competition, and how you foresee the future financial performance.

With the way the sliders work, you can see instantly how valuation would change with different settings.

Obviously, these are just estimates. As with estimates of house values, before you list your house, these estimates give you some idea, but are far from exact. They’re based on some standard formulas that estimate valuation using factors like sales, profits, assets, liabilities, and so forth. Don’t even dream of using this for a tax-related valuation, which requires a certified valuation professional; but it’s still a useful first look.