David Kelly

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In the last month or so I’ve seen two blog posts which have led to very worthwhile discussions around start-up businesses. Combined, these posts highlight the problems facing people thinking about starting Irish web-based business, or existing web-based start-ups.

On Pat Phelan’s blog, the question asked was How can we foster start-ups and innovation in Ireland today?. Weighing in with excellent ideas were a large number of people that have gone through, or are going through the process of establishing their own business. The second post, by Paul Walsh, asks a more fundamental question of What is a Startup? Scattered through the discussion, there are useful comments.

In looking at how people define start-ups, there is the common theme of them being small & having limited money. When looked at in conjunction with the comments on Pat’s post there is something interesting – in Ireland there are real or perceived problems, when developing a start-up, with access to information & finance (and more generally information about finance).

How do they survive?

If a start-up is defined as a company less than 2 years old, and the main problems for start-ups are access to funding or other supports, the question needs to be asked, how can they survive for 2-3 years?

In recent years, the government has placed huge PR efforts behind the idea of a knowledge economy. Through this, they aim to “foster” innovation by investing in research (of which I benefited via the IRCHSS). A recent example is the EI launch of the Business Partners Programme, which I linked to recently. However, outside academic institutions, there is a lack of information on how this drive for innovation is put into practice. This is perhaps counter-productive in developing an economy strong on indigenous innovative companies.

Access to Information

When I set up a year ago I started using the web, and blogs in particular, to help get a feel for the web community in Ireland. It is from these accounts of the experiences of others that I found any information regarding sources of support, the battles involved in accessing finance and the other necessary ingredients for setting up.

I also found that small networking events such as Barcamp, the Digital Media Island events are also great for meeting others that are going through the same problems starting out.

There is information out there, however finding it, and knowing how best to use it, are the problems that I ran into. Here are some useful sources I found:

• I came across some great work by Forfas (2007), under the title Developing an Entrepreneurship Policy for Ireland (the report on “Mapping of Initiatives to Support Entrepreneurship in Ireland” ( pdf ) is an excellent resource covering publicly run support initiatives).
• The Government run BASIS site has a section on starting a business. Mostly high level information with links to state bodies.
• Enterprise Ireland – Start-up section. As a web resource, this is of limited use; it provides contact details for their start-up team.

A way forward?

Together, these anecdotal accounts and more formal reports can be combined into something useful. However, there is a gap to combine the two in a more structured way. By linking information on on-going programmes with people’s experience of them, I think there are a number of potential benefits:

• It would give those starting out a “first-stop” to get a picture of available supports, potential pitfalls, and a roadmap to move forward
• New entrepreneurs will be able to make better judgements about what supports are most suitable to them;
• It would concentrate expertise & knowledge in one (online) location;
• It provides a way to identify weaknesses with current supports, and a source of data on how to improve them

In my (limited) experience, people are generally open and willing to help & share their experience with those starting out through their blogs and at networking events; drawing on this online would provide an extremely useful knowledge base. Perhaps that is an idealised view, however to me, it seems like a way forward for some or all of:

• An agency interested in fostering innovation,
• An academic institution interested in studying localised innovation or entrepreneurship, or
• A network of interested people with experience to share.

[Update: I was just about to hit publish, and I saw this pop up in my RSS feeds, from Web2Ireland: Venture Funding in Ireland… some discussions, good timing!]