“What I’d like to see too is more €6,000-ish grant schemes like the level 1 awards made by Social Entrepreneurs Ireland each year. I was one recipient of such a grant last year and it gave me the opportunity to invest a lot of time getting my project off the ground. @keithdkennedy is after announcing on Twitter that he has just received news today that he is to receive a level 1 awards through this year’s scheme. And I know that’s going to make a big difference to him in terms of the commitment he can give to his project idea. In some terms there’s not a lot you can do with €6k but in other ways there is, as many other alumni of Social Entrepreneurs Ireland have proven over the last few years. And access to the Social Entrepreneurs Ireland network is invaluable.

I often wonder why us Tuesday-pushers don’t create a similar ‘crowdsourced’ grant scheme where we use Pledgebank or similar crowdfunding service to fund (non-social) business ideas IQ-prize style by the group of people donating to the fund… and I do mean donating. We could then provide advice/feedback on an on-going basis in the same way Social Entrepreneurs Ireland do, through an on-line forum/network/twitter.

I for one would be happy to pledge €60 to such a fund and I’m sure we could find 100 other on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and so on. In fact I’d be happy to make such a donation every couple of months. Anyone want to help make it happen?

But if we offered it, would they come? And would they be right to come? From the perspective of someone currently doing a start-up, Ireland’s problem is mostly that the talent base is too small. It’s easy to move cash around the world – good founders can get funding from abroad. Getting people is much much harder.

What can we do about it – not too sure. Nothing soon. A 1st class research university (current count: zero) would help. It is just about possible that if we kick-started a start-up scene with a dramatic gesture, the talent would follow. Risky, but that’s in the spirit of the thing, right?

I liked Patrick’s article and agree that these issues need to be raised in the public eye to be taken seriously but Joe’s proved time and time again there aren’t many out there who know the Irish market and the requirements for startups better. I love your new plan for EI funding and support it wholeheartedly.

The lack of capital and tiny local market issues are the main killers of an idea of every competing with anything like SV

Silicon valley got weather and Stanford grads.
That is a massive advantage.

If Ireland wants to educate talented people that come here to research they need to incentivise it for them to stay here if the Irish based “Knowledge Economy” is to become a reality. Otherwise it is a waste of millions of yo-yos.

However I’m all for progress and I think that things need to change at the secondary and possibly the primary level in the schools to foster an Irish entrepreneurial culture.

Irish kids didn’t grow up selling lemons on street corners as many American children do.
Necessity is the greatest motivator of them all. More start-ups across all sectors will appear in the coming year I reckon. Government funding is not the blue pill to solve all their problems. A couple of other far cheaper solutions exist. For example simple to understand legal documents should be made readily available to help these thinking about starting. These would be dissected in the national media and people would have a much greater knowledge of what’s needed to really get started with their idea from company formation, to allocating shares between founders(50/50 is not always the best idea) and what to expect in their first term sheet.

Ireland has lots of investors willing to invest in companies; a boom does not exist in a country for 10 years without large amounts of people just sitting on extra cash. For this reason I believe, the Irish public began to engage more with share dealing as this was in the papers every day. So any article which will bring to peoples attention that there is an alternative(aka with greater risk, but also potential for far greater rewards) way to invest their money should be at the very least encouraged.

Joe, you mention the uptake in science recently, which is encouraging. Our university system are not great (only in certain focused areas do we lead Europe in R+D) but these are the areas we must focus on. Information on what PhDs are studying / researching should be more readily available, so that companies can see if there is any overlap where partnering up would be beneficial. In fact, they should often be fast tracked for funding to further develop their products if there is a proven market for what they are working on(this is across all sections, not just IT).

April Fools day joke this year on Web2Ireland, was that money was been pumped into promising techniques and ideas. Why doesn’t the government do this of course everyone says? Easier for us to answer, why don’t companies that receive Government funding do this? Would love to see 10 companies reading this come together and raise enough between them to support a couple of ideas. IQ Content did it. If nothing else, it gets the word out to the general public about this (still mostly invisible) section of the Irish economy.

The best chance to see emerging ideas is at the final year presentations of colleges nationwide. Yet when I was doing my in 2005, along with 300 others, not one small company came in to look at the ideas been presented. This was presented to us as normal. After working on an idea for 5 months, these students are at the one time of their life when they would be most likely to turn their product/idea into a company. If you want to encourage entrepreneurs in colleges and schools, certainly this is not the way to start.

Irish CEOs of start-ups have debated to end the lack of VC money available. True, that is an issue. VCs oddly enough are not the solution for most start-ups, but that’s a different matter. So instead of pumping more money into start-ups, why not give government money to get them over here instead (VCs on a plane!) . Or have a nationwide competition to select 5 companies to fly over to Palo Alto to Enterprise Ireland’s office right in the center of Silicon Valley to talk directly to VCs. A plane ticket costs 300-380 euro each way. The paddywagon tour(Irish CEos self organised a trip with support of EI) to San Fran was a success 2 years I believe, has this since been repeated?

Sure, military contracts may have boosted the start of S valley, as they would be a large receiver of the initial computers, etc. But I can’t imagine the military investing too much in Web2.0 technologies or start-ups in SV nowadays (Most recent I can think of is America’s Army).

I wonder of the many companies which have received Enterprise Ireland investments, what percent of them have successfully exited, etc. Also what level of employment (full time) do they provide in total between them vs. the amount of money EI invested?

Dragons Den has been a great tool to get people thinking about start-ups and realising that they should be based on real figures rather than dreams. Most important issue is that people, no matter your view point, gets talking about this.

Vinny (Y Combinator alumni)

I agree with your points in general and they perpetuate the thoughts behind Ycombinator clearly.
However I wonder how you can make these statements while you were critical of the Greenhouse plans at the same time.
Surely the Greenhouse operates along a similar train of though of what you are suggesting?