The New Year
Posted by Ronan | Filed under Uncategorized
It’s funny what a new year can do for people.
I didn’t pay much attention to it before but recently (in last 3 or 4 years) I’ve become more aware of the beginning of a new year. It’s definitely a time to reflect on the past 12 months but you can’t live in the past - you live in the present and wonder about the future. 2009 is going to be a very interesting year for me - that’s for sure. I’m going to be way outside my comfort area for most of it, I’m going to stop writing (thesis/papers/journals/books chapters etc.) for the first time in 8 years, I’m going to start thinking about things that are bigger than work, soccer, Internet etc., I’m also going to do things I’ve put on the long finger for way too long.
stay tuned.
EnterpriseStart program (week 5)
Posted by Ronan | Filed under Uncategorized, innovation, ireland, startup
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.
Tags: brian meehan, Enterprise Ireland, EnterpriseStart, eoin kierse, Vision Plus Finance, youbookin.com
EnterpriseStart program (week 2)
Posted by Ronan | Filed under Uncategorized, startup
Eamon Ryan from Practical Business Solutions (PBS) came in to talk to us on Friday Night. His presentation was really good and highlighted some of the key things that makes a successful business plan (and ultimately a successful business) . What’s been hammered home is the number 1 asset in the company is YOU! What I took away from his presentation were
Distinguish your product, do the market research, see what’s out there and identify their strengths and weaknesses.
Understand your Value Proposition - What do you offer, what is the real benefit and what pain does it address for your customer. What is your competitive advantage?
When trying to sell something to a customer - do your homework, research the company, understand their product and try understand where their pain comes from. You’ll probably have to look beyond their technology/services to find their real pain. Understand and the customer is Key.
The second half of his presentation was on the business plan. The business plan is not just for the bank manager/EI/VC it’s for you.. A business plan that will help you get to where you end up (not necessarily where you intend to go). It should be based around your Value proposition.
Austin Ryan from AMCS came in at 9ish to talk about his company - wow - what a story. Established in 2003, now employees 45 and with a turnover of 5.1M euros. I liked his presentation on a couple of levels.
- Technology. They use loads of different technology, RFID, GPS, GSM, GIS, SQL etc etc. I understood exactly what they used, how it works and how it connects together. The technologist side of my brain was satisfied however I was here for business so my business (small but growing) part of the brain was curious.
- Business. They looked past all the technology and placed themselves as the one-stop-shop solution provider. Whatever the customer wanted - they got. AMCS heal pain for their customers and their customers make more money in a monitored efficient way. Win-Win.
Saturday - Alan Carey from Carey and Associates (business consultants) came in and talked to us on the legal aspects of setting up a business. Basically there are 100 and 1 legal aspects to consider when running a business, if you handled them all at the one time your brain will fry and you’ll lose the will to get out of bed in the morning. But different legal things kick in at different times: pre-startup, startup and when your up and running (contracts, t&c’s payments etc.) If you prioritise, but yet keep the other 100 things in mind, and systematically go through them they won’t seem so daunting.
Shane McAllister from Mobanode came to talk about his experience for the past year of being a business. The presentation was slick and he communicated his product/idea very clearly. He knows what Mobanode is able to offer and to whom. I think the presentation wrapped up the weekends other set of presentations (even though it was a last minute thing for him). Shane has done tremendously in the past year - he is generating revenue, he had some of the sales with events last year and is looking to get more. It’s something to aspire to.
Unfortunately I won’t be able to make next weeks presentation - as I am attending the Irish Software Association Awards where there will loads of companies to meet. So the next round up will be from sides.
Tags: AMCS, Carey and Associates, EnterpriseStart, Mobanode, PBS, Practical Business Solutions
Showcase Season
Posted by Ronan | Filed under Uncategorized, startup, technology
Wow - two showcases in one week. The first one, the Enterprise Ireland ICT showcase kicks off at 9am in Dublin next Monday ( more details in a previous post). Having had a sneak preview of the projects there are some really cool and interesting but more importantly investable projects being presented : )
The second showcase is Mid-West Entrepreneur Showcase 2008 on Thursday 9th of October in LIT
Some details on the showcase:
The Enterprise Acceleration Centre (EAC) at Limerick Institute of Technology is delighted to host the 2nd Annual Mid-West Entrepreneur Showcase at the Millennium Theatre on Thursday, the 9th of October as part of Limerick City Business Week.
Entrepreneurs, emerging entrepreneurs along with sales and business professionals are invited to attend the event which will consist of a half day Seminar entitled Winning Sales – the key to Start-Up Success and a Showcase featuring clients of the EAC, including the eleven 2008 Limerick Enterprise Acceleration Platform (LEAP) participants.
Sounds good so I’ll be attending. If you want to go register here
Tags: Showcase
Add that little extra something to your website
Posted by Ronan | Filed under Uncategorized, web 2.0
With a lot of things in life it takes time to get the perfect finish. Personally I spend a bit of time hunting (editing/photoshopping) images to enhance a blog entry or spend a bit of time linking to other sites just to make the post a little bit better for the reader.
Over on the other blog I started testing apture - and I have to say I like it! I first saw it on the bbc.co.uk site and thought ‘wouldn’t it be great if I could have it on my site!?’ . Great news - you can - and for free!
So what does it do? Once you upload your new post apture adds super rich media content with a single click to a selected word(s). Here is an example of what it can do:
Tom went to the Ting Tings concert in the RDS and took this video on his phone.
neat eh?
Skip to about 3 minutes
Posted by Ronan | Filed under Uncategorized
A bit of Chrome is nice
Posted by Ronan | Filed under Uncategorized
Google’s Chrome browser was released yesterday and I have to say it’s faster loading pages than safari/firefox/ie. There is a nifty page to see the stats on memory usage etc. With identical pages open - firefox had taken over 100mbs more than chrome. Chrome imported all my bookmarks etc. from firefox and seems to work well.. It also has an incognito window which says
Rose of Tralee
Posted by Ronan | Filed under Uncategorized
Well it’s over for this year and that means the same old questions/headlines emerge : “Should the rose of tralee run next year? .. Isn’t it a bit embarrassing in this day and age?”
IMHO it should keep running until we get roses when asked to locate Tralee on a map ramble on like:
I think this is hilarious… It kinda reminds me of my Irish leaving cert exam - the essay part - no matter what the starting sentence was - I worked in my memorized essay. aahh good times.
Speaking of leaving cert and all.. The First Years arrive monday… the majority of which were born in 90 / 91.
Crossroads
Posted by Ronan | Filed under Uncategorized
Usually (for me) Graduation time is a fantastic inspiring week and it brings a tremendous buzz about the place. The buzz is even better when members of the centre are graduating! So a big well done to Paidi and Adil who graduated yesterday. The only downside to graduation is it inevitably means people moving on. This graduation was a little bitter-sweet - I see it as bringing an era to a close. Along with Paidi and Adil, Joe has finished up, so has Francesc, mgb is MIA and Edu is heading away (after 7 years) to take up a post-doc position.. it will be really quite now with you guys gone. See you soon and in the meantime stay in touch..
danger with working with animals
Posted by Ronan | Filed under Uncategorized
There is always a danger of getting injured/hurt when working with animals.
The danger increases when the animals are bigger & stronger than you. You have to keep watching them just in case they get freaked out and decide you are the cause. I’ve been on the end of quite a few kicks from cattle over the years but thankfully they never really connected. The same can’t be said for our dog back in Galway. She was in the pen ‘helping’ when one of our cattle caught her with a kick, breaking both bones in her left leg. Surgery was needed to put a rather large plate into her leg and after two day she was released back to us with a bright green cast.
Speedy recovery.
