Founders, investors and advisers gathered at Dublin’s Digital Hub for the first of a new series of events designed to answer two of the big asks on this year’s Founders’ Listening Tour with Enterprise Ireland – networking and access.
Earlier this year, Enterprise Ireland partnered with Silicon Republic to tour the country on a Founders’ Listening Tour, designed to get to the grass roots and hear what the challenges, barriers and opportunities are for those beginning their start-up journey or who were already well underway. From Donegal to Wexford, Cork to Galway, the seven regional events culminated in a stakeholders’ listening session in Dublin.
Now those findings are feeding into a range of initiatives under Enterprise Ireland’s start-up strategy, says Conor O’Donovan, head of start-ups and entrepreneurship at Enterprise Ireland, speaking at the first of a new series of Founders’ Exchange events yesterday (Oct 8) at the Digital Hub in Dublin 8.
Enterprise Ireland is again partnering with Silicon Republic to offer a forum for founders to gather, network, hear from other founders, and benefit from 1:1 meetings with mentors and advisers from Enterprise Ireland, the Local Enterprise Offices and other supporters. Yesterday’s event included mentors from Furthr.
“Today was really about acting on what we heard from founders when we toured the country with our Founders Listening Tour,” said O’Donovan.
“Founders asked us to be more available, to make it easy to access advice, support and information from not just Enterprise Ireland, but partners across the ecosystem as well.
“So that’s what we’re aiming to offer with the Founders’ Exchange gatherings. Today was all about bringing founders together and directly bringing to those founders the support structures from across Enterprise Ireland, the Local Enterprise Offices and broader partners in the ecosystem.”
Yesterday’s Founders’ Exchange was very much focused on early-stage start-ups, and attendees got to hear from fellow founders, investors and advisers in a relaxed, interactive setting.
Entrepreneurs Rhona Togher of Lios, Conor Moules of Barespace and Cuty Gupta of Cozmotec and Recruit Pro shared their journeys, their learnings and their insights into raising funding for their start-ups in recent years, while the investor and adviser panel featured Amy Neale of Irish VC Delta Partners, Evelyn Smith from Enterprise Ireland and Cathy McPadden from Dublin City Local Enterprise Office, who offered tips on getting your start-up investor ready.
The Start-up Clinic that followed these sessions proved extremely popular, with participants getting direct access to mentors and advisers from Enterprise Ireland, the Local Enterprise Offices and Furthr.
“Being a founder, especially being a CEO founder is extremely lonely,” said Conor Moules, whose start-up Barespace recently closed a €2.9m seed round.
“It’s actually great to get in a room with people who have real world experience of having done it recently, for them to be able to share that with you and kind of bring you along the journey with them.”
“I think it’s so, so good and so important for people to be here at these events,” said Cuty Gupta, co-founder of CozmoTec and Recruit Pro.
“Some people are ahead of you, some people are behind, but they all are doing the same thing, which is building something incredible. It’s so good to be surrounded by them. And even having supports like LEO and Enterprise Ireland here today – there’s so many supports that people are not even aware of.”
“I had an amazing morning today at the Digital Hub at the Founders’ Exchange. I think it is so important as founders for us to reconnect with the next founders that are coming up behind us, but I also had an amazing time meeting my fellow panellists,” said Rhona Togher, co-founder of the award-winning Lios.
“To hear all the feedback from the people who have come today, to hear how much they appreciated what we shared and the impact that’s now going to have on them today when they go to the workshops with Enterprise Ireland and the LEOs later, it really helps to kind of bolster us when we hear that the impact we’re having on them is going to encourage them to move forward with their companies.”
“We’re delighted to partner with Enterprise Ireland again for this unique series,” said Ann O’Dea, co-founder of Silicon Republic, who emceed the event.
“The format is purposefully informal and relaxed and relatively short, given the busy lives of many of those starting out on this journey, and that worked extremely well.
“We packed lots of learnings and advice from founders and investors into the morning, and it was particularly gratifying to see so many founders take advantage of the direct access to mentors and advisers in the Start-up Clinic. Hats off to EI for listening to that feedback from founders on the tour.”
Watch out for further editions of the Founders’ Exchange set to take place in Dublin and elsewhere in the regions. If you’re interested in attending future events, please sign up to the mailing list here.
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