DCUBS

You don’t always roll a 6 but if you keep trying you will

Posted on by Ed Whelehan

Last week I attended a conference called “Get Started 2017”, in the Helix on the campus of Dublin City University. What is Get Started 2017?  Get Started 2017 is a mini-conference bringing award-winning start-up & successful entrepreneurs together to talk to DCU students and the general public who wanted to come along to it as it was a free event. They talked about their own experiences setting up a business and how to start-up your own enterprise. There were nine speakers in total speaking at the mini-conference. They came from near and as far as Silicon Valley in the United States of America. Speakers from the conference that I intend to talk about in detail in this blog include Áine Kerr (Co-Founder & COO of Neva Labs), DC Cahalane (Co-Founder & CEO of The Republic Of Work), Alex Hamilton (Co-Founder of Kubicle) & Niall Dennehy (Co-Founder and COO of AID: Tech). Other speakers at the conference included Maeve Kneafsey who is Co-Founder of CloudKPI, Marissa Carter who is Founder and CEO of Cocoa Brown, Ann O’Dea who is Co-Founder and CEO of Silicon Republic, Andrew Kavanagh an award-winning writer/director/producer from Kavaleer Productions Limited & Joe Cullinane who is CEO of Strategic Artistry.  All of these speakers came from different dimensions of the field such as Niall who is a Social Entrepreneur and Alex who is a Young Entrepreneur

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Áine Kerr, an entrepreneurial Journalist

Áine was the first speaker of the day. To be honest, I thought before attending this conference that I won’t be talking about Áine in detail for my blog, but after attending the conference I had changed my mind as I thoroughly enjoyed her and her enthusiasm for entrepreneurship. Áine started off by talking about her academic endeavors in St.Pats College (Part of DCU now) doing a BSc in Education and then about doing a Masters in Journalism here in DCU. She talks about her uncle who was a journalist telling her to do her BSc in Education and specializing in journalism after completing the BSc. Listening to the advice from her uncle, really made me think of how good idea this was, doing a broad BSc degree in the area you’re interested in and then specializing in what you would really like to do. This made sense as if the career that you really wanted to do doesn’t work out, you always a broad degree to fall back on.

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Áine Kerr talking about Neva Labs & Mark Little is in the background.  (Source: Nevalabshq.com)

She then talked about her career in the Irish Independent, Storyful, and Facebook. Áine started off her career in journalism in the Irish Independent after doing her placement there as part of her Masters in Journalism, she spent 7 years in the Irish Independent before leaving it to go to Storyful due to her frustration with “Traditional Journalism”. Áine spent 5 years with Storyful where they tried to figure out journalism. In her talk about Storyful, she uses a very good quote to describe her goals, “Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone”, I really liked this as in entrepreneurship you really need to be out of your comfort zone to progress in Life. After Storyful she went to Facebook where she worked on how to get news through social media and did some meaningful work there such as set-up the Facebook journalism project. Just this year she left Facebook where she moved back to Ireland to work on a project with Mark Little called Neva Labs ( named this at the moment but it may change in future). According to Áine, Neva Labs aim is to help those who actively seek for information on a digital platform by making easy and allowing people to come on and get what they want and leave without wasting time. Kerr along with Little & a team of researchers are working on this project at the moment which makes this business to be in the early stages of start-up.

A video of Áine talking about finding news in the noise

From attending DICE lectures, we learned about common characteristics of Entrepreneurs and Áine has definitely some of these like her Industry Experience – 75% of Entrepreneurs had worked as employees at other companies for more than 6 years before launching their own.

From listening to Áine, she has  thought me a great deal of entrepreneurship and the path that leads up to start-up, you need to care about what you do and takes the risks because “Life is about living on the edge of your comfort zone”

Think big, think Niall Dennehy

Like it says in the title “Think big”, this is what Niall is doing with AID: Tech which is a business that brings social and financial inclusion to the world’s undocumented and underserved population using digital identify based blockchain technology. (That’s a mouthful). At the start of his talk, he talked about his inspiration which was his parents and how he started working at his parents business which sells motor parts at just the age of 11. For me, this puts into perspective how important your family background is in your future and what you learn when your young helps you in the future.

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Niall Dennehy (Source: aid.technology)

When traveling around the world while working for Ericson, Niall and a work colleague (Joe) wanted to set up a business as they wanted to make money ( main driving factor), be independent and to have fun. So Joe and Niall set up Imprez which was a presentation training and design business. They soon figured out why this business didn’t work out as they didn’t have a key factor when setting up the business,  which was the how can they make an impact on society.  This mistake gave rise to Niall’s next business venture- AID: Tech which he is now working with today as COO. AID: Tech provide enterprise level solutions to international NGOs, governments, and corporates to help them tackle some of most entrenched issues in their fields. By making it possible to deliver digital entitlements through Blockchain technology and Digital Identity, we address some of the largest obstacles in global development, including legal identity, financial inclusion, and corruption.

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AID: Tech- #1 Global Startup 2017 (Source: AID: Technology)

Niall again has shown some characteristics of an entrepreneur that I have learned about in my DICE lectures, he is motivated to make an impact on society as like what Peter Diamandis ( his inspiration for AID: Tech) said ” if every day you’re not making a difference or impact to society then you’re doing humanity a disservice”.  Niall is a Serial entrepreneur- he set up imprez but it didn’t work out so he set up a new business learning from his mistakes of imprez of now deciding on how he wanted his business to impact society.

Niall talking about AID: Tech

From listening to Niall, he has thought me a great deal of how to become a successful entrepreneur. Like that, you should always learn from your mistakes and to make sure to get factors of why you want to start a business right.

Alex Hamilton, a Young Entrepreneur

Alex, along with Joe Cullinane were part of the panel discussion at the conference, they were asked many tough questions by Joan Mulvihill, the MC at the mini-conference. One of the first questions she asked the two of them was, why did they want to set up their own business and Alex replied that he was craving the independence that came with what he thought an entrepreneur had, but he said he soon found out that this was not entirely true as there is a lot of pressure and strenuous work involved in having your own business.  I thought his answer to this question was very good, as he wasn’t making out that entrepreneurship was all fun & games, he was being honest about his experience. But he did say he was having fun doing this and it was important to make sure you are having fun because he believes that better work will be done when you are enjoying it.

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Alex went on to talk about Kubicle being a “bootstrapped” business which is an unfunded business. He talked about it being tough not being able to implement all the things they would have liked to do if they had €2/3 million, but he believed that having very little money was a very good motivator for him to succeed. I really like how he built his business up organically by sales because it’s about what you’re able to make with what little you have.

Joan asked them if they had any mentors and Alex said he did have a few “mentor type figures” who helps him with various things (not all business related). I thought this was cool because no matter how well you are doing in your career there is always someone who can help you do better( like Mark Zuckerberg & Steve Jobs). Alex said this really helped him in his career and that he has learned a great deal from them.

A link to Kubicle’s website

Listening to Alex has thought me a lot of useful things about becoming a successful entrepreneur, the importance of having mentors in your life and that entrepreneurship is not all fun and games. Alex like 66% of all other entrepreneur are motivated by the appeal of a start-up culture and I too am motivated by the appeal of a business start-up, he has taught me that setting up your own business is not all about capital, it’s about the desire to succeed.

DC Cahalane, a great advice giver

DC Cahalane was another speaker who I enjoyed listening to as he didn’t focus on telling us on the troubles involved with becoming an entrepreneur but rather on how to become one. DC is Co-Founder and CEO of the Republic Of Work which is an innovative workspace for entrepreneurs and businesses, they provide space for businesses to work out of. In the main hub, there is a meeting and events center, innovation suites, work desks and as DC calls it the “core of everything” their business lounge.

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From listening to DC, I have learned a great deal of valuable advice for becoming a successful entrepreneur. One of the first things he mentions is, the importance of marketing as it helps the business grow, marketing is not all about spending money according to DC but rather about time and hiring people who are involved in where you need to market the product. This is great advice from DC as it makes sense, there is no point in selling something if no one knows about it. DC also mentioned the importance of goal setting and planning, this was also great advice as you need to know where you want your business to be in the future.

Keep up to date with what is going on in the Republic Of Work

It is clear to me from listening to DC, that he enjoys what he is doing with the Republic of Work. He most definitely gave us great advice on how to set-up a successful business, the need to have a good marketing strategy and goal setting.

 

My Experience & Learning from this Conference

I have thoroughly enjoyed attending this event as I have learned a great deal about entrepreneurship. The things that stood out to me were the importance of having a mentor, that failure is the key to success and the passion required to succeed in business start-ups. I hope to build on all this advice and hopefully one day be as successful as some of these speakers at the conference.

I hope you have enjoyed reading my blog about Get Started 2017. If you have any questions about it, please feel free to contact me.

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