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.

John

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?

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?”