Get ready to get started! The Get Started conference took place on Tuesday the 17th of February. Having already attended two other conferences last year, the four-hour duration was still a daunting thought; therefore I think I may have exceeded a safe intake of coffee before the conference! Before Tuesday, I had researched what the conference actually entailed and what speakers would be present. I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that entrepreneurship, and start-ups would be some main topics for discussion. Not that I have some fantastic, entrepreneurial idea that would make Mark Zuckerberg’s jaw drop, but I always wondered weather anyone can become an entrepreneur, and if some innovative, brilliant idea is a necessity for success. Luckily, the conference provided me with a good answer.
First speaker out was Niamh Bushnell, a Dublin commissioner for start-ups. Niamh was probably my favourite speaker, and not because she was first, or the fact she was the only woman speaker, I though she connected very well with us students. She had a lot of experience in business and shared these past experiences with us very well.
What I loved about Niamh’s presentation was that she talked a lot about how everyone has to start out small at first, and with little experience and money, but eventually, hard work and some life lessons in business through some failures are essential for success. Niamh explained how she set up a company in Ireland. She only had a two grand grant from the government but a lot ofdetermination also. Over a good number of years, along with her co-workers, Niamh built up the company and after 16 years, left it, and New York, for a fantastic job opportunity with Enterprise Ireland in Dublin.
According to Niamh, Dublin is great for ‘innovative technologies’, and is small enough to be presented as a systematic well-programmed city. Niamh’s role as a Dublin commissioner mainly involves promoting the city as a good start up city internationally. She works and collaborates with the other Dublin leaders often. Something that I really agree with that Niamh said was that entrepreneurship is a fundamental learning experience. You have to learn how to use failures, and turn them into future success’, as well as seeing a problem and having the courage and ability to apply a solution.
Niamh is currently working on a newspaper which is soon to be released called ‘Why Dublin’, which I will definitely be checking out, and would recommend you to do so too.
Being the coffee obsessed person that I am, I was excited when I read that the CEO of Java Republic would be sharing his story with us. David McKernan is of course, a coffee lover who came up with the idea if Java Republic after working years for Bewleys, the largest coffee company in Ireland. Davis is a very eccentric confident guy whose presentation was engaging and interesting. I loved the fact that David had no college degree and worked relentlessly for 12 years before he dived into entrepreneurship.
David got a lot of inspiration to start his own business from café Roma in the USA. Although at the beginning, the company had little going for it and the minimal research carried out by David, he had a clever name for the business which caught on very quick, he was determined and never stopped believing in himself. He claimed he would have never got off the ground without the help from private investors, and secure funding from IBBS and BOI. David warned us all away from venture capital however. Throughout the years, he has received offers to sell out, offers worth millions that would set him for life! But he never did sell out and claimed sell-outs are for serial entrepreneurs. Recently Java Republic has re-launched, replacing the instantly recognizable yellow branding of the company for white. What was re-assuring about David’s presentation is he believes one can make and nurture entrepreneur, you do not have to been born one. His future plans are based around innovation, relevancy and to ‘grow like hell!’
David supplies us with a brief for 6 types of entrepreneurs:
Hustlers
Innovators
Machines
Prodigies
Strategies
Visionaries
Coupled with a number of essential traits for success in business:
Trust, humble, personalities, hard work, great storyteller, learn to delegate, fitness.
Kealon Lennon, the CEO of Clever Bug, talked to us about his sole business idea. Let me ask you this, do you ever find yourself in situation when you realizes a relation or close friend who lives in a different will be celebrating a birthday that week. The panic sets in, there’s not enough time to send a card now. But, with companies like CleverBug, this may not have to happen. The business enables users to send cards to those around the world. The great thing is, is that the app is synced with you Facebook therefore syncs all your friends birthdays, so that you can send premium, even customized cards to them if you wish. The company now has 76 printing offices around the world. What gave the company the press it needed was a 6 second shout out on the American talk show NBC.
Kealon finished his presentation shedding some light on the tr
aits of an entrepreneur and what the career demands. His personal experiences involved being told he ‘lacked ambition’ when he went to Silicon Valley, brushed the comment off and went on to build his company. He stated it doesn’t if your business will sell in the long run; it is more about your own ambition and believing that your company will succeed. One must understand the nature of a gift and not try and change irrational consumer behaviour.
Kealon’s presentation was short and sweet, and enjoyable to listen to.
It was the first time that there was a panel discussion at any of the conferences. CEOs from some DCU entrepreneurship programs such as DCU invent, DCU innovation campus and the DCU Ryan Academy talked on their own briefly, and then took questions and gave advice to us students and some budding entrepreneurs at the front.
Richard Stokes, who is the CEO of DCU invent claimed that it is easier than ever to start a business! I didn’t fully understand the scope of Invents work and objectives, so I did some more research. Invent really is a brilliant facility on campus who promote ‘innovation, commercialisation of DCU innovators and knowledge transfer’. They play a huge role in promoting the link between the collage itself and business, while promoting industry sponsored PhD programs, fellowships and student placements. Something that as a business student is quite important and pleasing to know is that DCU has done more licenses to Irish companies than any other university. I knew coming to the university that it is one of innovation and business, but I had no idea of the extension of programs available to students who want to succeed. The following article proofs the scope of acclaimed, well established business courses available at DCU.
http://dcubsblog.dcu.ie/eduniversal-best-masters-ranking-success-dcu-business-school/
An interesting fact that puts into perspective of the lack of incentives in Ireland is that there are 100 odd potential start ups in Ireland at present, yet in the Northern Ireland, where there is one third of the population of the Republic, there are 200 potential ones.
Ronan Furlon
g from the DCU innovation campus stressed the importance to us of innovation and connecting hardware companies. Dublin is the web consumer capital of Europe; therefore the guys at the innovation campus aim to ‘act as a new national centre for innovation in the Cleantech sector’. The campus, which has been opened since May 2014, offers a location of choice of like-minded, collaborative, innovative companies.
Last but not least from DCU’s ample research and engagement facilities, was Eoghan Stack, from the Ryan Academy, ‘the home where entrepreneurs are born, and where ideas are turned into successful businesses.’ The Ryan Academy’s vision is to act as a leading catalyst in helping to develop an entrepreneurial mindset. The academy has had many accomplishments to date including creating the first angel fund accelerator. While in 2014 alone, their alumni of 5 companies, has raised a massive 1.3 million between them. As an undergraduate, it is very re-assuring to hear that my collage offers these leading facilities for innovation and entrepreneurship.
When Sean Ahern, CEO of ThankFrank stood in front of us and told we could earn a monetary reward by simply clicking ‘thanks’ on a webpage, I sat up quickly, intrigued to hear what it was all about and how it worked. The business, which has not actually lifted off the ground yet, rewards goodwill and recognizes consumer appreciation, and the turning this appreciation into ‘something real’, like money. It sounds brilliant and a little too easy. The idea itself and how it can be installed in the Internet however sounded much more complex.
How it works: Basically, I can see a conversation on Facebook, I ca
n then ‘thankfrank’ the conversation which will open up a 
new page where you can put in your name. So when you get the link, you can click thanks, and therefore earning me a monetary reward.
A quote that Sean included in his presentation by Henry Ford, which I think is quite powerful is; ‘Failure is simply the opportunity to start again, this time more intelligently.’ Sean has had quite a lot of experience if start-ups. At first, he was a new-start up among experienced ones. He also stressed the importance on time and not to expect huge successes at the start. A guideline he gave us was to plan fro 3-4 years to entrepreneur and develop and grow a business idea. I enjoyed Sean’s presentation; especially the inspirational quotes by professionals, because you can’t beat a good motivational quote during a four-hour conference.
It was pushing 6 o’clock, but there was still time for one last speaker. Paul Kearley has had years and years of experience in the business world. School just wasn’t for Paul, at a young age he wanted to be successful and most likely, filthy rich. He left home at 16 to control his own destiny. However, his determination and intelligence in business afforded him success’, such as the company Norkom, which he founded in 1998. The business tracks criminal gangs, using embedded knowledge within technology. You could really relate to Paul. I liked the fact he had experienced failures in all areas but cam back fighting. For example, having to downsize his company by 200 odd people, going from owning 30% to 3% of a business overnight while losing 4 million in the recession. A lot of Paul’s presentation focused on winning businesses and breaking multi million deals, something that I may not need at the moment, but might come in handy in the future. I’ll have to wait and see!
Overall, I thought GetStarted was very beneficial and informative. I took home some top tips to succeed in business, including believing in yourself as well as business idea or company, and not expecting big things within small time frames.
D.I.C.E 