Having been mentioned in Keith Bohanna’s review of non-techie business blogs – I thought I better get my finger out and actually write something. Amazingly 16 people viewed my blog on the day that it was mentioned – so apologies to all 16 of you – who would have been very underwhelmed by what you saw.
Im still trying to figure out what it is that im meant to be writing about. I was thinking of rather than just unashamedly writing a blog about a particular business – which is pretty dull – even for me to write about. I thought Id start by just generally discussing how i got into the business and what went well starting it up and what didnt and look at some of the decisions that were made that were good, bad and appalling.
So to start with, my background is software development – worked in Irish companies such as Eontec, and larger ones such as Siebel. Left that about 18 months ago and then looked at setting up an online business selling kids products. Seemed like a good idea – Irelands in the middle of a baby boom and more people moving to online shopping. Of course lots of others are now in that space too.
Having worked in organisations where you have a very specific role – you realise when stepping out of that role, that you havent got a clue in general terms what it is to start and run your own business. Down to every last thing. Even fixing your computer when it goes pear shaped. You’re just so mollycoddled by having the support in place for absolutely everything.
So that was a very good experience – realising how little you actually knew. The first port of call for me was the local Enterprise centre – in my case Terenure in Dublin – and they were great. Really supportive. Lots of great advice. Michelle Hannon – who looks after start ups there was super. She knew her way around all the possible ways of getting grants, programmes available, just loads of information and ideas. So I would definitely recommend chatting to them at the start to see whats available in terms of support.
Also, the Dublin City Enterprise Board were very supportive. Greg Swift and Eibhlin Curley are great. In my case I got a website grant for 2,500 and an employment grant for 6000 with minimal hassle and overhead. The main thing is to have a half way decent business plan to start with – which is hard enough – but well worth putting the effort in. Michelle Hannon helped me out no end in this. She had the misfortune of reading a few of my drafts – but eventually we got there. I have to say it stood me in good stead as I used it for the Bank, grants, etc…
And finally for this post, which hopefully has kick-started my blogging career – I also, got on to the M50 Programme whihc helps promote new businesses. Its run out of IT Tallaght and is managed and co-ordinated by Patricia O’Sullivan and Angela Tynan. The programme is great – Its 12 months long – there’s day long sessions that tackle particlular business issue – financials, sales, negotiating skills, strategic planning – etc…… but its really useful (and good fun) and its great for meeting people. As anyone knows who works on their own how isolated you can feel.
Thats it – that was meant to be a quick synopsis of start-uppy path – that sort of thing. Anyway – back for more soon.
If anyone’s got any advice about how to snazz up my Blog page – I’d be very appreciative.how do I get the icons for people to add to their feeds – like googeReader – Im embarrassed how poor this looks. Anyway….
