Posted by Ronan on Nov 22, 2008 in innovation, ireland, startup, Uncategorized | 0 comments
Well week 5 of EnterpriseSTART was about money. We had an accountant, Brian Meehan, in to talk to us about cash and the importance of it. This may seem like a no-brainer but it seems people overlook it. I’m a stickler when it comes to money and I generally always keep track of it to the last cent - be it my own or project budget I’ve been in charge of. I didn’t intentionally set out this way it’s just something I’ve become aware of, so it wasn’t alien to me when Brian insisted we keep on top of the books and cash flow.
Cash flow - the balance of the amounts of cash being received and paid by a business during a defined period of time
The second presenter of the night, Eoin Kierse from www.youbookin.com came in to share his story on how they got their software company up and running (2006). What was key for them starting out was EI’s feasibility grant. During the feasibility they realised their business idea would struggle in their target market, but their feasibility uncovered one aspect of their initial ideal to be their way forward as a business. So at the end of the feasibility they changed direction and focussed on a different market – appointment booking. In 2007 they developed youbookonline.com, released it in beta form, got invaluable feedback and are currently incorporating the feedback into the product. I like the idea and I think there is a market – I do feel the barrier to entry is low so it would be important to gain a good customer base and grow from there. I wish them all the best.
The money theme continued Saturday morning with Pat Clune from Enterprise Ireland coming in and talking about funding and support – needless to say EI have a lot of support for potential companies and even more for those that are trying to achieve HPSU status. Hopefully we’ll be seeing Pat again sometime soon…
Week #6 is the last week (the 6 weeks have flown by!) and we get to present our ideas.. should be fun.