Videos

I took some photos while at the Get Started 2015 mini conference and made a short video using Flipagram. The photos include pictures of the guest speakers while presenting at the conference, and various different slides of their presentations.

I also stumbled across a playlist for the Get Social 2014 mini conference that I attended back in October. Although the conference was a while ago, the videos are definitely worth a watch, especially if you weren’t there on the night.

Here’s another Flipagram that I made. This time it’s from the Get Digital 2015 mini conference. I took all the photos myself on the evening of the speakers and some of the slides in their presentations. Give it a watch, it’s only a couple of seconds long!

Get Started 2015

On Tuesday the 17th of February (Pancake Tuesday for you foodies out there!), we attended the second last of our mini conferences of the year. This time it was the Get Started 2015 mini conference, and was once again it was held in The Mahony Hall of The Helix. We had the pleasure of listening to a wide variety of speakers. These included Niamh Bushnell, David McKernan, Kealan Lennon, Sean Ahern, Paul Kerley and also the DCU innovation panel consisting of Richard Stokes, Ronan Furlong, and Eoghan Stack.

The mini conference was held in the Mahony Hall in The Helix on Tuesday 17th of February. It was a duration of 4 hours.

First to take to the stage was Niamh Bushnell. Previously a part of the World Mercantile Exchange which is an American multinational company located in New York, she moved to Ireland recently as she was appointed Dublin’s first Commissioner for Start-ups. The position has been funded privately through the DCU Ryan Academy for Entrepreneurs. It is her job as a Commissioner to ultimately develop a voice, an image and a platform for Dublin as a great start-up city, both nationally and internationally. She spoke to us about how it is vital for start-ups to live in a community that you can engage in, and Dublin has that to offer. It is full of innovation and creativity, and is a perfect place for start-ups. However, with her being from America she has an outside perspective. She said that people outside of Ireland aren’t aware of Dublin and its potential, or even aware of all the great businesses and big multinationals already located here. For example, Mastercard, which is a massive company used worldwide, has one of its headquarters located right here in Dublin. This is a massive win for Ireland as it brings its profits here. The only downside is that a very limited number of people outside of Ireland would know this and be aware of all the Dublin has to offer. This is where Niamhs job kicks in. She plans on making Dublins potential known worldwide, because at the minute it is a “hidden success“.

Here is the logos for some of the big multinational companies that are located in Dublin.

Second to speak on the evening was David McKernan, founder of Java Republic. McKernan founded the company in 1999. He was inspired to start a coffee company by a place that he discovered called Cafe Roma. When he walked into the small cafe he just got a “spark of inspiration“. However, a few years later he returned to his place of inspiration and was extremely disappointed to find that it was exactly the same. They didn’t change a single thing about the place, and due to this it was rundown and couldn’t compete with all the other new modern coffee shops that it was now surrounded by. From this David realized how important innovation is, and that you have to keep moving forward with your business. He decided to redesign the brand to look more modern. He also opened more premises throughout Ireland. He refused to let his company get left behind with the times like Cafe Roma. He described being an entrepreneur as being a tough road, but if you “keep getting kicked down get back up“. I found his talk one of the most inspirational. I believe that he was right, if you don’t modernise your business and move with the times then ultimately it’s going to fail. You have to keep innovating and giving the customer what they want in order for your business to be a success.

Java Republics redesigned labeling.

Next up was DCUs innovation panel. First from this panel to make their presentation was Richard Stokes. He is the Director of Innovation at DCU and is also the CEO of Invent DCU Ltd. Throughout the years he has worked with many multinational and start-up companies, and was co-founder of four start-ups and CEO of two successful companies in the ICT sector. He said that today it is a lot easier to start up a business than it was when he did it. This is down to the various different support networks out there, for example the support available to start-ups at DCU. This support is available from Invent, which was established in 2001. It is located on the DCU campus, as DCU is a leading source of innovation and is known as “the university of enterprise“.

Invent DCU Ltd.

Second to speak from the panel was Ronan Furlong, who is the Executive Director of DCU’s recently launched Innovation Campus. The campus opened May of last year, and is home to a mix of start-ups and multinationals. The campus is all about engaging with DCU research, and adding value to the company through collaboration with the university and having a community “vibe“. I believe that the location of the Innovation Campus is an extremely cleaver one. That means that the stat-ups can avail of all that DCU has to offer. For example they could have some of the students intern for them, and they could even use the technology labs on the campus. Not only that but because it has a mix of both start-ups and multinationals, the start-ups can get some much needed advice and guidelines from the already established global businesses.

A picture of the outside of DCUs Innovation Campus.

Last to speak from the innovation panel was Eoghan Stack, Chief Executive for DCUs Ryan Academy. The Ryan Academy is a non-profit, joint venture between both DCU and The Ryan Family. It aims to be “the leading supporter of entrepreneurs and innovation in Ireland”. They hope to “promote entrepreneurial mindset” throughout Ireland. Stack described the journey for an entrepreneur in a way which everyone could understand. He said it was like “something you would see in Star Wars“. Although I laughed to myself at the idea at first, it actually made sense when he explained his logic behind it. He described to us how you have the hero (the entrepreneur), who meets Yoda and gets some advice (an already established business who offers you advice), then the hero goes through the deep dark forest (the ups and downs of the business), comes out and fights the monster and wins (fights competitors and to establish a place in the market)! Funny as it seems at first, it actually makes sense when you think of it. 

Following the DCU innovation panel was Kealan Lennon, both founder and CEO of Cleverbug. Cleverbug is an app that you install on your phone, which allows you to use photos to make personalized cards to “celebrate holidays and life moments“. It differs from other card companies as it allows you to connect with Facebook. By doing this it can sync your friends birthdays with the app, and send you push notifications and emails a week before a family members birthday. It is the only company in the world to use photo curation and algorithms to help find suggested pictures with meaning for your personalized cards. Although the company only launched around 18 months ago, it’s already a huge success as it has customers from over 200 countries. I believe that its success is because it stands out from the crowd and has something special to offer. Not only does it remind you of birthdays a week in advance so you will never forget them again, but it also offers same day delivery.

The logo of Cleverbug that was launched around 18 months ago.

Second last to take to the stage was Sean Ahern, founder and CEO of ThankFrank. This business is still in the process of being fully developed, and Sean made a comparison of how being an entrepreneur was like going to war, and he is “still in the trenches“. By this I think that he means it is tough going, but you just have to carry on fighting. The idea behind his company is that it’s a website that allows you to put a “like button” onto any webpage. In doing this it allows you to see how many viewers the page received, and how many likes it got. It also allows you to earn credit for every like that you get. I find it to be a clever idea. It’s a good way to know how many viewers your page gets, and an easy way to earn credit by getting people to like it. Lets just hope that Sean can stick out the war and get his company fully up and going!

The ThankFrank website itself isn’t up and running yet, but here’s the logo!

Last but not least was Paul Kerley, who is an entrepreneur and investor. He left home and 16 and dropped out of school. Later in life he decided to go back to education. He spoke to us about his various different successes throughout the years. He explained how it wasn’t easy, at one stage he even had to refinance his house to capitalize one of his businesses. However, he manged to turn even that around. They were making a loss then after the refinance of his house he used that money to help them break-even, and within the following year they were making a profit and he was out of the red. To me Kerley epitomizes what being an entrepreneur is all about. You have to take risks, not knowing whether you will end up worse off than when you started. He could have easily lost everything by taking the chance refinancing his home.