Get Started

The third and second last Dice conference “Get Started” was held on the 17th of February in The Helix. The theme of the conference was entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is all around us, in our local communities, on T.v. and even in our own universtiy, Dcu. Without entrepreneurs, I wouldn’t be writing this blog on WordPress and you wouldn’t be reading it on your phone, laptop or Ipad. Our world is constantly changing and developing due to new products and services being invented. Entrepreneurs face many difficulties when starting up a new business, such as getting finance and making the business a success.

 

Niamh Bushnell, Dublin Commissioner for Startups, opened the conference. Niamh gave us a brief summary of her background. Niamh was the Entrepreneur in Residence at Talent Tech Labs in New York City. She also worked for Enterprise Ireland in New York. She is also an angel investor and mentor at Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator in New York. Niamh co-founded her first company, Pan Research, with her brother in Dublin in 1996. “Pan research provides expertise, methodology and resources to ensure that frontline staff are delivering quality service, building brand and increasing revenue streams”. Niamh stated that one of the most important things you must have when setting up a business is self belief. It took 18 months of running the business for Niamh to be finally able to take a salary from it. At this time the business had a profit of 60,000 euro. After the business was up and running Niamh then applied for the position of Dubliner commissioner for Startups, although she still has an equity stake in pan research. Niamh’s duty is to promote Dublin as a Startup city, like London, Berlin and New York. Startup encourages entrepreneurship and fundamental learning experiences. Niamh believes your are much better off starting a new business when you are young, as you have little to lose and a lot to gain. Niamh also informed us that Startup is launching a new daily newspaper called ‘Why Dublin’ in March, to help promote Dublin. This will be available in the London embassy. I think this is a brilliant idea and oppurtunity for Dublin to be ‘put on the map’ as a Start up City.

The second of the speakers, and my personal favourite, was David McKernan from Java Republic. I found his honesty and self-belief inspiring. I found myself telling family and friends his story in awe. He really did start from the bottom. Another reason I found him intriguing is that unknow to many people Java republic is based locally in Cell bridge, only 8 kilometers from Dcu. Java Republic is the second largest wholesale supplier of coffee in Ireland after Bewleys.  David got his inspiration for his business from Cafe Roma in New York. After years of building up Java Republic and making it into a success, David returned to Cafe Roma and found that it had fallen apart and the owner had lost his passion. David recalled it as a sad day and from then on vowed to never let that happen to Java Republic. David declared that his love of coffee and never ending drive has helped with his success. Another piece of valuable advice David shared was to surround yourself with great people. All of Java Republics products are Fair trade David listed the options for financing a new business; credit suppliers, bank, Enterprise Ireland, family, seed capital, angel investors, private investors and venture capital. David warned to be careful when lending money from family but also encouraged the use of angel investors. David also admitted that his generation has blown the prospect of funding for my generation for the foreseeable future. I couldn’t agree more, but the banks are to blame too. In 2002 when Java Republic was set up it grew 20% year on year. David raised 200,000-300,000 euro through investors. Although like many businesses, in 2008, the height of the recession, the company had a dip in revenue. In January 2014, Java Republic got a new look. The yellow was replaced with a new silver packaging. David plans to keep innovating, stay relevant and grow ‘like hell’.

The 2nd part of David’s presentation was about entrepreneurship in general. He stated that there is many types of entrepreneurs; Hustler, innovators, machines, prodigies, strategists and visionaries. David also posed an interesting question. Are you born an entrepreneur or is it something you learn during life? To be honest, I think it takes a bit of both, you are born with the DNA to be enterprising, but you pick up skills in life that help you become and entrepreneur. For example, you are born ambitious, but learn time management. David advised that entrepreneurs to be; humble, hardworking, a good story teller, able to delegate, confident, a good decision maker and able to trust people. Because starting a new business is stressful and hard, David reminded us that it is important to look after your own health and fitness.

 

Th 3rd presentation was a panel made up of  Richard Stokes, DCU Invent; Eoghan Stack, DCU Ryan Academy for Entrepreneurship; Ronan Furlong, DCU Innovation Campus. First Richard spoke of the on campus resource for entrepreneurs; Invent. Richard believes that setting up a new successful business has an element of luck and that it is now easier to set up a business, as there is more support and resources available. Invent is owned by Dcu and A.I.B.. It contains an incubation centre, for entrepreneurs to test their ideas. It currently has 18 resident companies and 35 spin out companies. Invent also provide a 12 week Tech venture programme for Dcu researchers. At the moment there is only 100 potential start ups in Ireland, compared to 200 in Nothern Ireland, that has one third of the population we do, this statistic is disappointing. Richard puts it down to the lack of incentives for Irish start ups.

Ronan Furlong, executive director of Dcu Innovation campus poke about the facilities available to entrepreneurs. It allows like minded companies to engage with each other. It provides a resource for companies to research and collaborate with each other. Some companies that use the facility include Veolia, Siemens and Fujitsu. THhis allows the three sectors, health, ICT and energy, to interact and creates a community vibe.

Next, Chief Executive of DCU Ryan academy, Eoghan Stack, informed us that the Ryan Academy is a partnership between Dublin City University and the Ryan Family (founders of Ryanair). The academy supports entrepreneurs in Ireland and  is connected to other major startup ecosystems across Europe. It is a magnet for foreign direct investment (FDM). It has housed 24 companies over 4 cycles. Ustart provide 5000 euro equity fee per team. I found this panel fascinating because I didn’t know that Dcu provide such useful and successful services for entrepreneurs, some of which I hope to be using in the future.

Founder and CEO of Cleverbug, Kealan Lennon, was the fourth presenter. Cleverbug enables users to share memories and moments in minutes. This an app available on the apple and android app store. Cleverbug is officially bigger than the global brand Hallmark.  It uses 76 printing and logistics around the world to deal with the printing and shipping of the cards. The  app integrates with your Facebook account, to not only remind you when to send birthday cards, but to also allow you to customize those cards with photos pulled from your friends’ Facebook profiles. You’ll never forget a birthday again. Clevercards was so successful in it’s first month that American Greeting wanted to buy it, incards also siezed the oppurtunity of sending a few samples to Live Today, on NBC. I think the pro activeness of the business contributed towards it’s phenomenal success. Infact, the president of American Greetings left and wanted to join cleverbug.The app allows you to send printed cards or digital cards via Whatsapp or Facebook. Prices are from $2.99. 52% of consumers are from the U.S. and also another intriguing fact is that 67% of the U.S. population is on their Database. Kealan admits that starting up a new successful business needs a great team backing the idea. I agree with him when he believes that everyone can be an entrepreneur. Although being an entrepreneur does not come without it’s difficulties and stress. I also agree that you need to want to do it and have a lot of resilience. The ideas of Cleverbug works because there is 1 and a half billion smart phones in the world.

Seán Ahern, founder and CEO of ThankFrank was the 2nd last speaker. Thankfrank is an initiative thank puts a ‘Thanks’ button on webpages. This allows viewers and readers to click the button, when a consumer clicks the ‘Thanks’ button they receive rewards, fro example; Amazon vouchers, credit or a charity donation. Seán hopes that in the future there will be a thanks button on every webpage. Amazingly, 75% of money goes back to the people who use it. Seán also shared three interesing quotes with the audience. The first was from Albert Einstein, the other two were from Henry Ford.

1. Seán shared more inspiring words of wisdom;
   1. Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t, so you can spend the rest of your life like some people can’t.
   2. You have to make a lot of effective decisions and everything relies on them.
   3. Our greatest glory is not never failing but in rising every time we fall- Confucius.
   4. If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or objects’- Einstein.
   5. ‘ It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.’ – Warren Buffet.

Seán was an inspiring and empowering speaker. He was honest about the rewards and difficulties being an entrepreneur can bring.

Paul Kerley, a DCU graduate, was last but by no means least. Paul is an inspiring and experienced entrepreneur and investor. Paul spoke about his company Norkom Technologies, where he was CEO from 1998. Paul spoke about the companies financial problems but also spoke about its growth year on year until her made the company public in 2011. Paul also reinforced that it is O.K. to make mistakes once you learn from them and don’t make the same ones twice. Paul’s lack of presentation made it hard for me to fully engage, although he was a great public speaker.

In all, I found the conference informing and it was an afternoon well spent. It opened my eyes to the support and resources available to new businesses in Ireland. What I enjoyed most though, was the speakers no nonsense approach to their presentations. I felt their honesty about the difficulties and rewards of being an entrepreneur uplifting and inspiring. It has made has definitely made me think strongly about setting up my own business in the future.

Thank you for reading, please feel free to leave comments about experiences or difficulties you’ve faced when setting up your own business.

‘Get Mobile’

 

The Second installment of the Dice conferences was on the 11^th of November in The Helix. This conference was titled ‘Get Mobile’. I personally think, today int he 21^st century, it’s time for us all to ‘Get Mobile’. It is virtually impossible to walk through D.C.U. campus without seeing at least 1 in every 3 people using a mobile device, whether this is a phone, tablet or an iPod. Sending E-mails, checking timetables, texting and checking Facebook are only a number of the tasks my fellow students are doing, while bumping into the innocent people who cross their path, while their head is buried in the mobile device. The conference taught me the importance of businesses becoming mobile, in order to continue their success.

 

Dr. Theo Lynn, digital marketing programme, chairperson in Dcu, opened the talk, again with intriguing facts and statistics. He spoke of how the mobile phone is a constant companion in modern day life, which is something I can relate to as my mother would say I’m ‘never off it’. Some research done by Thinkhouse that I found compelling was that 60% of 18-35 year olds own an iPhone, 36% own an Android and 3% use a blackberry. As an android user in a group 5 friends who all have an iPhone, this came as no surprise. What surprised me was that 3% of people aged 18-35 use a blackberry, as a few years ago the blackberry was the ‘must have phone’. This really reinforced to me that trends in the mobile world are constantly changing and that mobile companies must keep up with the latest technology to keep hold of market share. Dr. Lynn also mentioned that the age of people when they get their first phone is getting younger, what shocked me was that the average age today to get your first phone is 16. I would personally consider this old for today. Considering I was 9 when I got my first phone (yes, I do realise that is ridiculously young and no I didn’t ring or text anyone ever. I only had 3 contacts; Mam, Dad and Grandad.) . I remember well arguing and sulking until I twisted my mam and dad sround my little finger to let me get one from Santa. Another point that Dr. Theo Lynn shared with us that, I found amusing is that 84% of people surf the internet while watching T.V.. Also 56% use the internet while on the toilet! Google glasses, Smart watches and connected cars were all topics of interest to me, aswel as location notes.

 

 

Dr. Mark Hughes, Chief Technical Officer, from Digifeye, was the stand out presentation in my opinion. Maybe that’s because spoke mainly about shopping. I found myself wanting to know more about technology that could help me find that dress Kim Kardashian wore last week. He explained how computers see photos as a series of numbers and that they had to programme the computer to know what objects are when a series of numbers appear together. This is how Facebook use face recognition to tag people in photos. This helps consumers in many ways, for example, if I see someone wearing this red dress and want to buy it, I would have to spend hours searching through millions of images on Google. But with Digifeye’s technology, I can now take a picture of this dress and use the image to search for the dress and it will show me where to buy similar dresses. Many fashion retailers, Marie Claire & Instyle etc, now use this technology to help their consumers find their desired goods.

 

Wearable technology was the next topic, presented by Dr. Cathal Gurrin, lecturer at DCU. He spoke about how quìckly new technology develops and loses it’s value. Today it is possible to buy a 7” tablet for 35euro in China. Something I also learned was that the iPhone 5 is 60,000 times more powerful than the computer that guided apollo 11. He also stated something was is so true, that in 3-5 years time we will look back on the phones and mobile devices we have now like we look at ‘Blockias’. Dr. Gurrin also took us through the decades and developments of the mobile world. It went from Desktops in the 80s to wearables in the 10s and who knows what the future holds. It is also predicted that Wearable technology will be mainstream in 2015. Wearable technology will, in the future, know us better than ourselves. Google glasses were mentioned again, but in more depth. Google glasses enable us to make a log of our life, it captures every aspect of everyday. In a year it logs 2 million images, and 3.9 location points .

 

Eoin Cruise, from Microsoft Ireland, was the next speaker. He broke the news tous that Nokia would become to Microsoft 2015. This is due to Nokia’s market share dropping rapidly in the last few years. He also tried to persaude us to buy a microsoft phone in the future. In 2013 the Nokia Lumia had 11.6% market share.

 

Another presentation I thoroughly enjoyed was Paul Davey from IBM. IBM were the company that brought us ATM swipe cards and it also hold the most patents by one company. In Ireland they are based in Glaway, Cork and Dublin. Interestly they produced the first smart phone in 1994, that could send E-mails but it cost a hefty $900 and each app cost an extra $3000. I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t have paid it! IBm also work together with Apple. Apple bring the device and IBM bring the apps.

The first Smart Phone

The last Speaker was Alex Meisl, chairperson at Sponge and Wiforia Ltd. Some statistics I found engaging was that 2/3 of adults would rather give up alcohol than their smart phone. And something I found disturbing is that in France their are more smart phones than toothbrushes. Another fact that blew my mind was that 145 billion texts were sent in 2013, a number I can’t comprehend. Alex Meisl also spoke about the power of mobile apps for businesses, for example Walmart customers that had downloaded the walmart app, on average spent 40% more than consumers that didn’t have the app. It is crucial that businesses keep up with the latest technology by creating an app, as 4 out of 10 shops will close in the next ten years. Another marketing strategy I found impressive was McDonald’s Monopoly promo. It gave consumers a chance to win prizes simply by using the McDonald’s app. This increased McDonald’s app usage from 10% to 50%. As a frequent online shopper I was surprised that consumers who searched the product on a mobile only took on average of an hour to buy the product compared to when it was done on a desktop it took on average a month.

Overall, the ‘Get Mobile’ conference opened my eyes to the powerfulness of mobile devices in everyday life and also in the business world. I hope you enjoyed reading my second blog and look forward to my blogs in the future. For more information on these presentations click here

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‘Get Social’

The first Dice conference of semester one was held on the 14^th of October in the helix. At first I thought a four hour conference sounded tedious, but I was quickly proved wrong. ‘Get Social’ was based on the effects of media in the business world. Without a doubt there was very few people in today’s world that can survive without technology. Today I personally couldn’t survive without it, from tweeting about The X–Factor to keeping up with friends on the opposite side of the world. The conference taught me that social media plays a major part in the success of any business, and can quite frankly make or break it.

Dr. Theo Lynn addressed the audience with some fascinating statistics, which need to be seen to be believed. For example, who would have thought that Aleksandr the meerkat would be more popular than our own Taoiseach Enda Kenny? Ok, that’s not that surprising going by the latest budget. But the death of what I would consider the most influential and inspiring man of our time being over shadowed by the death of a Hollywood actor. Paul Walkers death was googled more times than Nelson Mandela. I found this truly scandalous. It really opened my eyes to the effects of the media on people in the 21^stcentury.

Deirdre Hogan, from Gajo, described the objectives of the digital marketing company. I found it intriguing how specific the marketing technic is, meaning companies do not spend money marketing to the wrong target audience. Gajo uses key words and technology to advertise their client’s products and services to prospective buyers. Gajo searches people on social networking sites, Facebook and Twitter for example, that have expressed ‘purchase intent ‘or ‘switch intent’. For example if a person on Twitter tweets the following:

 ‘Does anyone know if three mobile is a good thinking of switching from Meteor’. Gajo technology processes the key words ‘three mobile’ and ‘switching’, this allows then to market directly to that person, by placing ads on their twitter feed.

 

The thinkhouse.ie presentation, by Jane McDaid, was engaging as it contained many graphics and statistics. Thinkhouse works with brands to create media campaigns to target people between the ages of 18-35. Jane revealed to us that 60% of consumers watch videos before reading content and with ever evolving technology that 46% of YouTube views are from a mobile device. This reinforces that digital marketing is key to a business’s success and is essential in creating new consumers and markets.

My favourite section of the presentation was ‘The 7 sins of killer content’.

1. LOL
2. Epic
3. Emotive
4. WTF?
5. Zeitgeist
6. NSFW
7. Informative

Marketing Director of RTE digital, Lucy Campbell, provided us with an insight into RTE’s digital strategy. Lucy revealed to us that 73% of homes own a smart phone and 87% of people under 35 own one. Lucy also confessed to us that 53% of people aged 16-30 would rather lose their sense of smell than their mobile devices. This demonstrates just how much this generate depend on phones, tablets and laptops. Also 37% of RTE’s audience for live streaming matches comes from outside Ireland, which is remarkable, as people that are on holidays or living abroad can still enjoy watching Irish sport. Of course RTEs, most famous production ‘Love/Hate‘ was watched by 56% of the population, when it returned to our screens for its 5th series. The power of social media is evident again as there was 8500 tweets with he #lovehate tweeted during the first episode, coming from 5500 individual accounts. RTE now stream GAA matches online and these have been watched by 150 countries globally. This no doubt was increased when, Irish comedian Dara Obriain tweeted about the matches and British presenter Dermot O’Leary responded.

 

Wolfgang, a digital marketing company, works with SME’s. Alan Coleman, CEO, provided us with a useful insight into the digital marketing world. He told us about the 16th of August 2013; the day Google went ‘black’ for 4 minutes. This resulted in global internet traffic falling by 40%, showing that Google accounts for 40% of internet usage. As Alan put it ‘Google makes the WWW go around’. On social media when there are phrases or keywords used to show purchase intent, Wolfgang show their clients adverts. When there is no sign of purchase intent no adverts are displayed, this saves businesses. Coleman then showed us a comparison between Facebook and Google as an advertising medium, which Facebook came out on top, in my opinion. A piece of information I found particularly fascinating was that adverts placed on the center of a Facebook timeline receives 51 times the amount of clicks than if it was placed to the right of the screen, Facebook is also cheaper per click. Alan also provided us with steps to marketing;

• Think pathways to purchase first.
• The Next wave of ‘big wins are in the Ligaments.
• Use social media to create Brand advocacy
• Use social media to kick start your brand marketing.

The 2nd last speaker was Nicholas Capperll‘s from LinkedIn, a professional social networking site. Nicholas explained that LinkedIn helps its members to become informed and inspired. It helps businesses network with professionals . It also helps professionals build a portfolio and become more success in their chosen career.

Last but not least was Eric Weaver, Chief social officer, from IPG Media Brands , showed us an epic marketing campaign by Oreo called the ‘daily twist’. Oreo were trying to rebrand their cookie and make it more relevant to modern day. Every day for 100 days, Oreo added a twist to their classic cookie, following this publicity stunt their Facebook likes rose by an incredible 280%. Eric also spoke about organic advertising, a term I had seen a few times but was not 100% sure of its value. Free advertising through social media also generated $20 million in 6 months for T-Mobile. One  tweet by John Legere can generate  $348,000 for the business. Eric clearly demonstrated that organic advertising on Facebook does not target enough people as 95% of fans don’t see brands content. This means that unfortunately paid advertising is essential. Weaver also informed us, to my surprise that 10,000 followers can be more valuable than 1million. He also added that often, when businesses post to much it can turn followers off and cost the company customers.

 

The ‘Get Social’ conference inspired me and made me reflect on the effects of media in everyday life and in the business world. As marketing is an area I am keen to work in, I am even more eager to learn and work with social media as a marketing tool.

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