Irish Silicon Valley, dont make me laugh
I have had a chat with a couple of the Irish companies who attended and demoed to TC50 and it appears to have been a huge success for them as I had hoped.
Joe Drumgoole “The best event we have ever attended, well worth the time money and effort”
Covered by Techcrunch Europe, hats off to Mike Butcher
I had predicted this and had hoped that everyone who had an invite to the demopit would attend, Unfortunately one of my favourite idea’s (got a full demo) from Sabrina Dent couldn’t make it due to lack of funds and to me on a weekend where I have watched the diaspora raving about Ireland and how we can get out of this mess this is a disgrace.
Where are the state bodies? where is the emergency fund?
Why couldn’t one of our agencies have come up with the 7k (probably 5k in reality) needed to cover the guys for this event.
I know people will say lack of paperwork, not the correct forms filled in but I think this is unacceptable.
We had an opportunity for a Cork based company to put their story and product out in Silicon Valley and what happens? nothing
This to me is commercial suicide for a nation.
This is the stuff we need to examine,not new bodies and new boards/commisions with still the same old hands involved, we need people like John Hartnett, Johnny Gilmore, Liam Casey, Denis O Brien watching out for these companies not looking for the big pay day but 100′s of little pay days.
We don’t need the usual mandarins picking the winners, we need a committee of Irish businessmen with numerous sources in the community keeping a watch for stories like Sabrina Dent.
My solution might seem a touch simplisitic but you know what for 5k what a chance was missed for an Irish start-up and I for one am pretty pissed off about that.
Irish Silicon Valley? not until we wake up and start looking at the big picture, not just the guys coming out of Trinity or wearing the correct school ties.
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Absolutely spot on Pat. About to write a similar post from a different angle.
Totally agree Pat
When EI can spend 000s on daft 4 page reports from consultants on a 3 year old white paper versus monies into the hands of startups
Bottom line
- less money spent on bullshit
- more money to people daft enough to try and do something that “changes the world” [ref: TC + Ms Lacy]
Slan
Pat, great post. It’s largely the same for us in the UK. UKTI try, and have some programs like their ‘free flights’ and exhibition funds but it’s always too difficult to access them at short notice, or in a lot of cases people don’t even know they are available.
Don’t even get me started on Business Link either.
I’m sad to read this post, great as it is, because it means that, a year into recession, we still haven’t learned a damn thing about how to be faster on our feet in Ireland. Innovation and success are only possible when chances are taken.
Perhaps this post should be sent as a letter to EI the Dept. Of Enterprise. If we could download it and all send copies maybe some lightbulbs would appear over heads.
Pat – Great post.
The state of play in the North is similar. I know of a number of projects that would do so well to get some exposure and for a couple of reasons. 1. To let those that are working so hard on their own time that they are not alone, to allow ideas to be swapped. And 2, to see if anyone would invest some seed money. Being able to bring a project into the public domain as early as possible, i believe is a great way to test the water. It can save someone who has a “passion project” wasting an awful amount of time on something that will never make money and/or to be successful because they can have social benefits as well. We need the help of those that have gone out and done it, Liam, Joe, Denis, Evert, Matt and yourself Pat. Bring the interested parties together and create that critical mass. Some all island thinking would be good because there are good people in the North thinking the same. What ever happened to Paddy Valley. Time to plan an invasion of SV by the Irish?
I’ll comment in more detail later, but on thing immediately struck me as a sign of how disconnected “they” are from “us”:-
How many of the gang at Farmleigh even knew about Bizcamp that was happening just down the road?
Wouldn’t it be a clear signal that they were beginning to “understand”, if some form of collaboration was possible during Bizcamp? Some cross-pollenation of speakers & sharing of ideas…..
Not too much to ask now, is it? Might not change the world, but wouldn’t it be a start?
Sad that she couldn’t get the funds. Hard to get picked for that event and there is always a huge amount of publicity for any company in the Demo Pit over the week.
Ireland needs to get it’s finger out and stop wasting money on the old reliables. Every organization starts out small and thats when they need the most help. With all the software organizations in the country I’m really surprised that they don’t give more support for promotion of Irish startups to these types of events. I counted very few Irish startups in TC50, there should have been more!
i agree Pat.
There is far too much talk and not enough champions making things happen.
The diaspora is the right idea but sadly I dont have faith in EI or IDA in making it effective.
This needs to be championed by industry with state support. Cork has seen what an Industry led organisation can achieve with it@cork. This type of attitude and voluntary commitment by the right people.
I’m there to help or drive it on with whoever is ready. Wouldnt be good to know what our various representative bodies are planning and when something real with happen
live from Croke Park. Up Cork
Ye know, when someone from a startup like mine, that hasn’t hit the bigtime yet, bangs on about YCombo and Seedcamp and lack of Angel ecosystem, I understand why the powers that be pooh-pooh me. What the hell would I know?
But when guys like you Pat, and success story after success story, are saying exactly the same thing, it drives me utterly mental that it’s business as usual for civil servants, politicians and those with deep wallets and no property left to invest in.
It’s not business as usual. It’s change or die. If anyone thinks it’s “keep the head down, tighten the belt and shur we’ll be back to normal in a few years spending stupid money on stupid things”, they are in for a major shock.
The amount of money spent on EPP/CORD type funding in Ireland is probably less that the petty cash for lattes in NAMA. The number of so-called VCs actively investing here with these so-called seed-funds is a joke.
Let’s stop trying to predict the winners before they have even got started and let’s help the maximum number of people increase their chances of success.
Do you realise the lack of self-justification and control that would imply?
54M for a bunch of obsolete e-voting machines. Or 10,800 5k grants. Difficult choice….apparently
keith
Here in the Irish Silcone BOGG! The only thing that lasts are bog bodies. The government is only interested in Foreign investment, and have no intentions for internal investment. They are still expecting the Dell’s and Intel’s of the world to bail out the economy, not homebrew Irish Entrepreneurship.
I hope people don’t think I am being too hard on governmental bodies but
would I rather fish with dynamite or 4lb line
well you know my answer I guess
I’d like to see tax breaks for startups – in Austria you pay reduced council tax if you have flower boxes on all your windows, makes the country beautiful and floral – the same logic should be applied to startups, we have the potential to improve the country…
I dunno though, can’t claim to know much of politics!
It was clear as day to me yesterday at Bizcamp. Great presentation from Justin Knecht on Service Design and customer centric design. Next up was EI with out of date support models and no idea of who customers are or what their needs are. Why can’t EI and others tap into the existing skills in the service design arena to help them ensure thay are providing meaningful, innovative support that their customers need.
As much as it would be great to have our own little version of the valley in Ireland, the fact of the matter is that you just cannot get access to the level of people you should be talking to, in Ireland. We have the talent pool. We have the technology. We have our own little tech scene. We even have a handful of global success stories. What we’re missing is the opportunities that pretty much seem to land in your lap, by way of having a geographical presence in or around SF.
Myself and Joe spent 12 hours talking to anyone that passed by our stand about CloudSplit. People from other startups (who are a big enough chunk of our target market as most are using the cloud in some way) to service providers, including Amazon (another segment of our target market, for partnership deals) to VCs, such as Sequoia and Granite.
They type of conversations we had while at TechCrunch50 and over the course of the following days, just don’t happen in Ireland.
I believe that government support should be structured in a more accessible way, in a way that better suits the fast paced growth of a tech startup. However, I also believe that to a certain extent, we’re also victims of our own geographic location. Creating an agile environment for Public and Private investment in Irish startups would be one way to address this, but it seems to me like we’ve all (startup folk) been trying our damnedest to achieve that over the last number of years.
Part of me wants to pack up and move, lock stock and barrel to where the magic really happens.
Well, in agreement, EI were there and were advertising they were going to TC50. It seems a shame then that from the Ireland side they weren’t asking in advance did anyone need help with pitches and with finances to get over there. No better place for Ireland to be seen as innovators then the biggest tech event of the year. I’ve chatted to Pat about the void in Ireland months before Techcrunch 50 where perhaps an org, State owned or not should be giving Techcrunch50 workshops and the like.
However, if your idea is a winner then take the risk. Beg, borrow, steal. If people know you’re on to a winner they’ll surely want to be an angel investor. Why should the State have to ring around asking do you want a handout? Route around them and stop relying on them.
Pat, you have plenty of stories of going to conferences with sfa money and staying in hostels. You worked your ass off to raise the cash.
At the end of the day, if the State is needed to give you 5k for a business idea then I’d be reexamining your ability to pitch the idea or the idea itself. If you can’t raise that tiny amount without Government intervention, can you raise 50k, 500k? I think most people see TC50 as being worth the overdraft or remortgage.
It’s not enough to make a great product, you also need to make it apparent and tell people why it’s worth chipping in to invest in it or invest in sending you to an event. While yes, perhaps EI should have grants and more for those going to events like Techcrunch be you on their books or not, more importantly Irish companies need to realise the start and end is not EI or other state handout mechanisms.
The only people they should rely on at the end of the day is themselves otherwise you’re just another in the dole queue demanding what you’re owed.
Well said as always Damian. Have a look at a Northern response of sorts over at http://nisw-ftw.ning.com there’s an open strategy document that you might be interested in as a reader or contributor.
I find myself agreeing with Damien Mulley on this one. If you can’t pitch your idea and raise 5k without government intervention then your not looking particularly sound when your looking at raising serious investment money.
At that point it might be more about reevaluating where your start up is now and if you can’t pitch it, then bring someone in who can and can lead you in that direction.
A great ideas is just that, but unfortunately it relies on others to spread, demonstrate and pitch itself. It won’t do it alone.
This argument is old and has been re-hashed over and over again to the point where it is nausea inducing.
It’s a questions of context.
Do we need a Irish Silicon Valley or an Irish TC50? No, what we need is a fertile environment for starting & growing companies. We need to stop coppying foreign ideas, concepts & companies verbatim. We need to promote the growth of Irish owned and Irish run companies. Not because Irish is better but because these companies will not dissappear to foreign shores when the wage & operating costs get too high.
We need small investments in multiple start-ups, we need mentoring, we need contacts in foreign markets and we need networks of people who’ve been there and done that.
Problem is that a state body is going to struggle to provide this in a timely & targeted way. Not because they are incompetent but because they live in a different context. In the public sector everything has to be accounted for and everything has to be disclosed, documented and deliberated. We entrepreneurs might think that quick-fire 50k investments with no strings attached are the way to stimulate early stage companies but there will be lots of people out there who want to see the direct benefit of this funding or who think it should be invested in healthcare, education, roads or what-not. All very valid investments with their own rights.
What we need is a public sector that creates an environment for entrepreurship. By improving the infra-structure (roads & public transport as well as broadband), by setting up a fiscally beneficial system for start-ups, by giving access to necessary information, by doing things like creating hot-desking space in all Irish embassies abroad (or even in all government buildings in Ireland). By hiring more people like David Smith in EI’s SV office.
What we don’t need is a public sector trying to be a private sector by becoming involved in investment, business planning etc. Leave that to the experienced entrepreneurs & investors. They’ve been out in the playing field and they have taken the knocks and the falls. They will be best able to see what business idea has a change off success and deserves funding. They also will be able to give other starting or growing entrepreneurs the best advise on how to develop their business, how to market it, what markets to enter and most of all: what NOT to do.
I share similar frustrations from within the Scottish community, there is a lot of bright and clever people here, but there are several problems that mean so many ideas don’t see the light of day.
1, Funding (especially at the kind of level this post is about) seems to be completely non existant. I’d love to be proved wrong though
2, There are active angel investors in Scotland, but they tend to focus around companies with a product ready to come to market, which I think a lot of people would agree, is a huge hurdle to overcome.
3, Risk, plain and simple, right now, with the current financial mess, no-one wants to risk the roof over their head. Now I’m not saying they should, but support, encouragement and a few £1′ks could make an incredible difference to those decisions.
4, Banks (no matter what they might pretend to say) are still incredibly unhelpful, and will only lend money when they are absolutely guaranteed to get it all back, startups have no chance, unless you want to risk your house on it (see 3 above), and even things like the EFGS aren’t much help.
(Rant over)
Twitter: shanekny
20th September, 2009 at 4:01 pm
As an “outsider” I feel a little awarkard jumping in here. But anyone who knows me would expect no less.
Just to start with an easy one. I doubt there’s anyone reading this who doesn’t appreciate the value of TC50. Having an invite and not being there is like having the winning lottery numbers and not buying a ticket that week!!
Rather than get into a debate on whether the state fund it, or the founders should have found a way to afford it, I’d like to throw in a comment, and add to one of Pat’s comment.
It beyond my comprehension that the industry, the tech media, the agencies responsible for economic development didn’t realise just how prestigious, just how many ’000′s of companies would have sold their mother’s for a chance at that, just how much positive press that €5 or £7k could have bought the whole Irish IT industry. I’m guessing it would have been <1% of the cost of Farmleigh
I left with two thought.
“for the lack of a nail, the shoe was lost, for the lack of a shoe, the horse was lost ….”
“the thinking the got you into a problem, can’t get you out”
BTW on #NISW, we’ve already started discussion on how to get a NISW into TC50. And then promote the hell out of it.
So, if next year there’s a startup anywhere on the island that gets invited to TC50 and they can’t go because they can’t afford it – I’ll pay the god dammed fare myself, and they sleep in my loft in SF.
Having run into an Enterprise Ireland guy in Foleys Inn, San Francisco, at the end of TC50 I do slightly wonder where their priorities lie. However, similar issues exist in the UK, so we cannot talk. But it’s interesting that the “Paddy’s Valley” entourage of Irish startups which hit the Valley a couple of years ago also inspired a UK version called WebMission, which has happened twice now. But where is Paddy’s Valley? That was a great idea, kicked off by Irish entrepreneurs themselves, but it seemed not to get the Irish governmental support it deserved in an ongoing manner.
But in regards to TC50 – this really is a seminal event for startups. Yes there are others (Demo etc) but the atmosphere at TC50 I think is so much less corporate, and frankly I think a lot more “real”. It’s for this reason I’d encourage any startup, whether they get into the final 50 or the DemoPit to consider even just the plane flight and hotel room. Ok, it’s not going to be as useful as actually being on stage or in the demopit – but there is nothing stopping you turning up to the W Hotel for the after-party drinks and networking with about 500 other VCs and startups, now is there?
Also, if Sabrina Dent had contacted me prior to TC50 (she didn’t) I may – possibly – have been able to offer some advice or help.
Failing that, TechCrunch Europe does write about Irish startups, I hear
– So I’d be delighted to hear her pitch and – if it’s our kind of story – give her some airtime on TechCrunch.
TC50 was great for both ourselves and VidSchool and any startups should consider it simply because practicing your pitch over 200 times in two days in front of the most challenging audience in the worls is the bes training package ever.
EI has approved support for CloudSplit to go to TC50, and that happened because I was a known quantity, but also because I made it my business to get the CloudSplit onto the EI system the day after we incorporated.
Pat perhaps you could use your Influence on the Internet Gateway Alliance to get blanket approval from EI for next years trip? That would be a excellent adjunct to the existing training course currently in planning. Remember doing is the best training.
As regards Paddy’s Valley 2.0, we discussed the very thing in SF with EI and they are very open to support a new event.
I should also point out that the previous “best ever” event I attended in SV was the one organised by EI on the previous Paddy’s Valley trip.
Date noted everyone? I agree with Butcher.
@evert I fundamentally disagree that we need Irish owned companies. The nationality of the founders is absolutely irrelevant.
As has been shown in America and other countries it’s the place a company is founded that is fundamentally most important. They will stay there where their investors are and will employ locally until they grow and have a need for other offices.
Economic growth will come from supporting and encouraging the very best entrepreneurs no matter where they’re from to create the best companies possible.
Even in Silicon Valley they are not so arrogant to think that all the best entrepreneurs will be American and more importantly they don’t care.
I have to agree with Damien on this. We (VidSchool) are completely bootstrapped but once we got the opportunity to go to SF and demo at TC50 we got into ‘beg, borrow, steal mode’ and did whatever it took to make it happen. That included calls/e-mails to EI to see if we could get some help with flights and conference tickets (to no avail thanks to a cog in the EI machine who refused to respond to e-mails, calls until pressure was applied at which point it was too late).
TC50 was great for us, for many many reasons (including just hanging around with another great Irish company with huge energy and ambition) and I will be back next year as long as I can beg, borrow and steal again but if you don’t/can’t do whatever it takes to get there, then maybe you shouldn’t be there. We need to stop relying on handouts and start being pro-active. Having said that, it would have been great if the Irish side of EI could have shown some interest in helping us out (John McIntyre of EI and Jon Nugent were great over here).
@anton
great post
http://antonmannering.com/20/09/2009/no-silicon-valley-in-ireland-basic-policy-is-wrong-to-create-a-hub-here/
I too have no hard feeling whatsoever to EI in fact their Valley team has been amazing for Cubic and we have numerous meetings set up for international markets week.
What I am trying to get across is the seismic change that is needed to make this a reality and I don’t see this happening, as a very famous Irish businessman said to me earlier.
“the economics of democracy is re-election”
RE Seismic change. I totally agree. The bankruptcy of the political system here has astounded even me, and I’m REALLY cynical.
Very interesting discussion that I can hopefully discuss from both sides of the fence. Sean and Damien are 100% right that you just need to get the chops and do it but even Sean will admit that before going it was a bit of gamble and even he didn’t think it would turn out that well.
It is easy for guys like myself and Sean to head out to the Valley but it changes if you have a wife and family and strong roots here in Ireland, it is a massive commitment as Pat will I am sure attest. For those who decide to take the HARDER route and stay here a bit of state help is essential sometimes but we should count ourselves very very lucky that it even exists here and that there is some money available, this is just not the case in many other European countries.
There is very little government support in USA but there are a lot of people willing to take risks (same in Isreal) and to a large extent we don’t have that here, we are mostly a cautious bunch and very introverted.
One area that would help everybody would be more Bizcamps, more Paddys Valleys, more face time with Irish entrepreneurs and more giving each other help up the ladder. There is plenty of clients/ money/mentoring to go around but it doesn’t always feel like we are all batting on the same side here even if we are in totally different industries.
I think it was the wise old Bono who has summed it up best…
“In America they look up to the man on the hill with the big house and admire him and say well done whereas in Ireland we look up at the hill and say the bollix is too big for his boots”
We also can’t all be slamming the government from a great height demanding FOI’s every 2 minutes for everything and then in the very next breath ask them to loosen the purse strings in another area and just throw money at a problem. There has to be balance
While it would be good to see companies getting assistance from banks, the government etc., this “we deserve a handout” type attitude that some people seem to have makes me sick.
I don’t see why anyone should be getting handouts to go to TC50 or any other event.
If you really really need to get there, then you need to make it happen. If you can’t make something like that happen yourself, how on earth are you going to run a business?
Sorry Niall but that FOI comment is plain dumb. There should be transparency in Government spending since most of us pay in more to the system than we get out.
FOIs are essential for fairness and to ensure some people don’t double and triple dip into the taxpayer coffers. If you want to take money from taxpayers, expect transparency. Slamming people who want to know where taxpayer money is being spent and blown sends out the wrong message.
what about Irish Technology Capital, vc fund, http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2009/0911/1224254276275.html
Irish Technology Leadership Group , cisco vp barry o’sullivan talking about it at #gief
and Irish Venture Capital Association
http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/13717/business/irish-tech-firms-raise-111m-in-face-of-recession
are they not useful to startups?
How about a Startup 50 for Ireland each year that selects, and funds, 5 winners who go on to TC50 (or Demo etc.) Naturally part of it is getting the invite to Demo Pit or to go on stage at TC50. Rounds could be had at Bizcamp and Barcamps around Ireland.
As for EI, start early on them. There are good guys in there but you sometimes have to try a few times to get their attention. You can also try going through the likes of Arclabs in Waterford or other incubators which have good connections with EI.
I knew nothing about EI and such 3 years ago and found it baffling at first. It seemed to be a “who you know” game. But now I see that there are open and interested people in EI who will respond to new ideas and start-ups. Just keep trying.
Hmm, we seem to have gone down the “why doesn’t the guv’ment do something?” dead-end once again.
From what I’ve seen in the past few years, it’ll be those in industry who’ll crack this nut and I think that’s right.
At a recent dinner where I had a long chat with someone from EI, I heard the sentiment I’d wanted to hear for a very long time: “EI should be supporting the initiatives of you guys rather than trying to lead and control everything as we have traditionally done.”
That’s why the IGA, BizCamp, BarCamp, IQPrize, Paddy’s Valley, SeedCamp, ITLG, etc are so important. We need successful businesses and entrepreneurs to show that the new support/investment models work, by example.
@steve_white Re IVCA: Regina Breheny, director general of the IVCA, May 2008 “Most of our investments would be in software firms that can grow to scale, not in dot.com companies or because someone has a nice widget”. That would be 3 months before Polldaddy was acquired by Automattic. Hence the need for a different approach here.
On a separate note about Paddy’s Valley. If Irish startups want Paddy’s Valley 2.0, why don’t you get up off you holes and organise it instead of wondering why “someone else” hasn’t. Less talking, more doing.
@Anton I thought that it was obvious that I *didn’t* mean that these companies had to be owned by Irish nationals. Seeing that I’m not Irish that would have been a pretty dumb thing to say. What I meant is that these companies had to be founded in Ireland and that ownership should lie in Ireland. Big difference…
Must agree with Evert there. All I see in the papers is that the Irish Silicon Valley is to be composed of Dell, Intel, Microsoft, Facebook, Oracle, IBM etc. offices. Court the big international companies and let the local boys in through the back door.
If I wanted to work for them I’d go to the States, I wouldn’t have come to Ireland. I came here to work with the Irish, a brilliant if sometimes disorganised lot.
Twitter: shanekny
20th September, 2009 at 10:19 pm
EI = Useless. Take what you can but if you try and understand them you will grow old and grey before you know it. WASTE OF TIME. They don’t know the industry and its unlikely they ever will.
Government = Useless. For a start STOP VOTING FIANNA FAIL. We have the government that YOU voted in.
Finally, startups. Stop looking for handouts or state assistance. In a perfect world sure, governments would support entrepreneurs, but in Ireland right now, the simpletons are in charge, so its not going to happen.
Startups: Go forth and kick some ass on your own. Pull cash from wherever, if you don’t have cash then don’t try and build things that require cash. Good ideas will get funded and will get bought.
agree with an earlier comment, ‘don’t get me started on business link’
there is money available, just RDAs in the UK waste it on funding people to advise businesses who themselves don’t know the first thing about business.
Far better to make it easier for startups to access knowledge themselves. Give them decent broadband, the info is there free for the taking. Marketing too. The internet is an enabler. I won’t mention who isn’t. Small companies struggling with dodgy internet don’t use it cos it is too much hassle. Fibre to the premises. The world is at their feet.
Twitter: tisjames
20th September, 2009 at 10:47 pm
Great to see a post from Pat on this as he’s somebody who actually understands business far better than a lot of the people who talk and write about it. I’m glad to see some role models being pointed out who actually have the business acumen. Conor makes a great point with the comment from the EI-er who talks about supporting rather than controlling – these guys are civil servants not entrepreneurs. That’s not having a go at civil servants it’s simply recognising strengths and weaknesses.
On that note I think we also need to start being more discerning in who we listen to here on startups and how they should be funded/run. I’m seeing comments and diktats from people who don’t have the business track record or balance sheets to back up their spiel (annual returns via the CRO make interesting critical reading). Then again, I’m not involved in a startup so maybe you should ignore that
As much as I would like a few quid right now from EI, I don’t believe its their duty to hand it out simply cause I have an idea. However there are tonnes of problems with EI and here is not the place. Suffice to say I don’t have the pain threshold at present for that, so its dig deeper and max out the loans, credit card, grannies whatever I have to be sold etc. Anyone want to lend me a few quid?
As a person more or less working on my own I have to say the number one thing that would help is decent and credible support. I’ve been very lucky and had Damien & Pat to call and then got someone else involved that gave the project amazing exposure. I am now picking up from a setback but we’ll get there.But without the support and encouragement I would have ditched it at the first hurdle a year ago.
Feeling isolated right now, the one thing I crave more than cash right now is that support group. And I’m not just talking about ones like open coffee etc. Things like a group of guys (or gals) getting together and running with something.
Listen there are about 50 people in the state I’d love to work on a project with right now. They have some great ideas and I have some ideas. I am a big fan of dumping us all in a room, pitch to each other. select a project and run with it for a period of time, formally and legally constructed. The work is shared, the experience is shared and we all win. We’re far more efficient and stronger working together than on our own.
This is something that costs nothing to do just commitment and a desire to win. Don’t get me wrong, I not getting all community focused or anything like that, but a team of for or five working together is far more effective that one person banging their head against the wall.
As for the cash, well the chances of getting cash is increased by the number of people you can get involved into the project.
As much as I would love to go to TC50, I’m gonna try and focus on just getting something proper going with proper balls behind it.
its not all about start ups is it, what about the next phase
I have to say I’d have a different perspective to Pat here.
Part of being an excellent business is making sure what absolutely needs to be done, gets done.
For this, you need to be responsible and not use the excuse of external parties not being able to do their bit – EI or anyone else.
I agree governments (not just the Irish one, but others too as they’re all the same wherever you go) should do more to help small businesses – especially during the troubled times.
However, I think too many entrepreneurs feel ‘entitled’ to hand-outs in the form of grants and conference subsidies. It would be nice to be on the receiving end but there are so many conferences around the world it’s impossible to send everyone to every conference that ‘they’ feel is appropriate. I also think too many of them feel entitled to investment. Out of interest, I’d like to know how many entrepreneurs closed deals on the basis of partnerships and clients that will generate revenue, or investment. Seeting aside the usual helpful networking and rubbing shoulders…
My advice, for what it’s worth, is to focus on generating revenue and use that to pay for events such as TC50 if they are that important. Personally I think most conferences are of limited benefit to startups. I’ve been to TC50 on a freebie thanks to the organizers and I really enjoyed hanging out with the usual suspects – but I didn’t close anything that generated more revenue for any of my businesses. That’s not to say it’ the same for everyone – but I bet the percentage of those who really benefited is/will be minute.
Have to agree with the don’t expect freebies side of the argument. We’ve always received great support from local enterprise boards when starting off and then EI as we grew so I won’t knock them. They are big unwieldy state agencies that probably work a lot better than their European counterparts, something that the large amount of Irish entrepremuers out there are testament to.
We shouldn’t however feel that they have to fund our companies until we make money at some stage. Entreprenuers take more risks for more rewards – we can’t expect the government to negate all our risks and then happily go off and expect the rewards down the road.
pat’s post imho was sparked by the gief and comparisons to bizcamp, the gov was shouting all weekend we want to do something in relation to new tech and vcs, i think its ok that pat suggests a few things in response.
IVCA gives 22% to statups which is > 0
so any more comment on http://www.itlg.org/ at gief
The real question is where is the NON-state support?
Why was Sabrina unable to secure the chump change needed to get to TC50 from the Irish Angel investment community? Because there is no Irish angel investment community.
Why not?
Perhaps because a high proportion of Irish startups are uncompetitive as.a.direct.result.of a culture of state subsidies and grants?
But more likely because the tax breaks available for Irish angel investors are not strong enough to outway the increased risk involved with startups.
Either way, I wonder how many angels outside Ireland (London!) Sabrina called to ask: “Do you want the opportunity to invest just $10K in a TechCrunch 50 attendee?”
Saw this post and comments at the weekend but didn’t have time to respond. This morning, I had a discussion on email with several friends, all of whom have their own business (not all technology-related) and voiced some of the same issues + some others. Posted below is my contribution to this discussion. You will see that it strays further afield in some points as the conversation was about other things as well (including the Fusio/J.C. Decaux thing)
Anyway, my 2c. If I get deported from Ireland for posting some of these points – so be it.
Here goes:
In my opinion, Ireland and the Irish suffer from a number of things:
1. Post British Empire Stress Syndrome – ‘as long as I have what I want, I’m good, I don’t care about anyone else’ – hence the obsession with owning land/house/apartment/big car/parking space etc. This extends to sharing of information: the number of times I have been in a conversation with someone who is starting (or hasn’t even) a business and they wouldn’t talk about it – too many to count. And the number of people that are talking about doing business with you but then don’t follow up, don’t get me started.
In my view, most business is built on execution and cooperation. In Ireland, there is little of either.
Why this might be different in the Netherlands: Some historians have pointed out that (NL being below sea-level) if two neighboring farmers (for example) do not cooperate to keep the water out, both their farms get flooded. Necessity breeds innovation and cooperation.
2. Parochial – ness (in the parish-sense and the small-town mindedness) – ‘Your man, Paddy, look at him with his big house and car – disgraceful’ – this is fuelled by the fact everyone knows each other.
Holland is bigger and (at least the Randstad – Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague) secular so there is no such thing as ‘Ah, we all know such and such business man, he might be successful but he is a right prick. – I know, he lives down the road from me/is my wife second cousin once-removed/see him every Sunday down the end of the pew (he never sticks his hand in pocket at the collection).
3. Hungover and dependent – Ireland had a great run between mid 90s and 2007, success for everyone, gets people into a comfortn zone of big house, car, far away holidays etc. Most people that grew up in this environment only hear the stories of ‘how bad it was before’ – If you go from ranked below Portugal to ‘the richest country in the EU’ (almost became a registered trademark), perhaps you start to expect things to automatically come your way but in the least it breeds a sense of entitlement.
On this note, and it ties in with my next point – I have never been in a country where people expect so many hand outs. Most of the people in the digital/media/startup/whatever area complain about ‘the lack of support from Enterprise Ireland’. Since when is the state responsible for helping to finance your business? (I whole-heartedly support most of Enterprise Ireland’s support in the form of tax breaks for small business but it seems that a lot of people call up EI to find out what grants or subsidies are available before they have even started building their business.)
4. In the Netherlands, if you want to set up a business, you can go 2 ways: Limited liability, you deposit 18K as a guarantee. Or unlimited liability – you carry the burden. That’s it. First option is best if you manage to bring cash into the business or raise funding. The latter is for everyone who starts trading day one and live on cash flow.
This means that if you want to be ‘an entrepreneur’, you take a risk:
You don’t take a salary, you sell your car and you don’t go on holidays.
And it may fail. Then you get over it. Each time you fail, you learn.
Seems to me that in Ireland you are punished for failure. Perhaps that’s because so many people gamble with other people’s money.
Sounds familiar doesn’t it?
I am of the opinion that there are many people in Ireland that would consider redirecting their pension contributions towards an Angel Investor Fund, if the same tax breaks on contributions applied.
Twitter: shanekny
1st October, 2009 at 1:22 am
Pat, I totally agree with you – we really need to fix this and I’d would like to catch up with you in Belfast to brainstorm some ideas to help young Irish start ups.
John
“The Diaspora idea is the way forward. We need to connect and also reconnect with everybody Irish around the world. John McColgan (Riverdance) Is heading a small group of us and we will have a plan within 4 weeks. It will have to be commercial otherwise it will never work. John Herlihy and Dermot Desmond are involved.”
This is all great guys, but it’s entirely moot. We are NOT developers or Bankers, we don’t pump up the pockets of the currently standing government, and They will never ‘Get It’!
I’m so late into this discussion. Only found it after Pat Phelan tweeted about Denis O’Brien’s contribution.
I’m encouraged to find you grappling with such important stuff. Sabrina Dent worked for me yesterday. She’s fantastic as anyone who knows her must already know.
For every one of you publicly thinking this out, there are others, like me, close by unaware that there is a good cause needing a piddling sum to make a breakthrough.
Why on earth wasn’t it possible for Sabrina Dent to be there virtually? Maybe that’s ignorant. Maybe all such avenues were explored.
I’m all for face to face but, if that’s blocked, there’s surely a way round?
Whatever you do, don’t rely on anyone who needs to be elected. By all means court the public bodies, but have plans for doing without taxpayers funds. And certainly don’t waste a shred of energy criticising one lot of politicians above another.
Unfortunately Dennis O’Brien used a phrase that is loaded with associations: “we will have a plan in 4 weeks”. That put me off bigtime, though I’m sure it wasn’t meant to. We live in an age where people want to be let in on the planning process. Drop a hint that you’re about to reveal something and people want to know what you’re up to. I hate being kept in suspension. And trust noone Irish to be as good as their word. (I’m not looking for anyone to subscribe to such a disgrunted mood.)
Fortunately Dennis O’Brien is tuned into what’s going on here. He’ll tell others and they’ll see whether they can bend the agendas together into something.
Keep it up. I’ve a young child, 4 years old. I brought her to Ireland with me in Oct. 2005. I’ve been wondering whether that was a responsible thing to do.