Start-ups and scale-ups from the north-west gathered at CoLab for the last regional stop on Enterprise Ireland’s Founders Listening Tour.
Tuesday (10 June) saw the final edition of the regional leg of the Enterprise Ireland (EI) Founders Listening Tour take place in the CoLab at Atlantic Technological University, hosted by Alpha Innovation.
Early- and late-stage founders had the opportunity to give their feedback to EI on the needs of the Irish ecosystem, particularly for those starting businesses in the region. And the unique challenges and opportunities of having such a long land border with Northern Ireland was to the fore.
The tour has seen EI travel around Ireland to gather input and insights from founders. The aim is for the feedback gathered to help shape the roadmap for its new strategy to support 1,000 new start-ups over the next five years. The tour took in Dublin, Galway, Cork, Louth, Wexford and Westmeath, and will round up with a stakeholders’ listening session in Dublin later this month.
David Bowles, managing partner of The Yield Lab, said it’s been great to see the level of support for the tour across the seven locations the agency has visited.
“We’ve learned a huge amount across this tour, and it’s been fascinating to see the commonality of themes, but also the differences that have come across from region to region.
“Commonly, we’ve seen things such as improved mentorship would be great. We’ve seen access to information is an area that can certainly be of interest to people, and even things as simple as a website that would list out all the supports.
“We’ve also seen a lot of regional differences,” he said, giving the examples of the border being a major topic in Letterkenny, while size of the regional ecosystem was discussed in Cork.
“Today in Donegal we’ve met a range of entrepreneurs from lots of different backgrounds, from different stages of development, from early stage right up to SME and larger,” said Conor O’Donovan, head of start-ups and entrepreneurship at Enterprise Ireland.
“So, it’s been really interesting to hear their perspectives and their experiences.”
“Just walking in the door, there was a great atmosphere,” said Orla Ward, founder and director of React, a consultancy firm that supports businesses delivering social value.
“Everyone is part of a really tight ecosystem here in the north-west.
“We’ve got a lot of support with the CoLab, where the event’s happening, Alpha Innovation, the university, and the Donegal LEO. So, it was great to see all those people together in one room.”
As the tour can only reach a representative sample of start-ups and founders, EI says it welcomes feedback from all of the community, and asks that interested founders and start-ups feel free to leave feedback via the Founders Listening Tour survey here, before the end of June.
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