2 Years In Business, Happy Birthday To Us

Today, July 19th (according to the certificate here in the office), marks the second anniversary of myself and Aidan going into business together. So I toast the occasion with a bottle of water - primarily because its not even 11am and we haven’t reached the point of having a sneaky bottle of whiskey in the bottom drawer of the desk.

Upon reflection I think its been a great two years for us. A pure learning experience, a pure development for both of us personally and professionally.

We had both spoken at great lengths during college about wanting to start something up on our own, not content with looking for a graduate position straight out of college in a job you wouldn’t know if you’d love or hate, in a town, city or country you wouldn’t know whether you’d love or hate. I feel lucky in that regard that we were able to do it in Kilkenny, to have the opportunity to establish ourselves in our home town, also securing an office premises no more than a 3-minute drive from our respective family homes.

Our main focus in the beginning was to cover events from a promotional point of view - commercial photography, design and marketing. Having worked on varying web packages and projects both in college and on the side for my four years spent living in Waterford there was a chance to develop these projects commercially, which in lead to a turn in focus quite early in the business to the web design and marketing aspects - both our key strengths.

We took our first client just a week into business, our second two weeks later, and so it has continued over the past two years. We made our first hire in December 2005, a move we hadn’t anticipated making until at least July 2006 if not later but with three hands on board we’ve remained busy for two years solid.

Now, as we turn into our third year of business we’re back to a two person operation (as I mentioned last week with John departing for pastures new) and aces are starting to slip out of sleeves. Internal projects are on the rise and we continue to draw in new clients and new business.

Of course its not as if business just falls into your lap and we’ve had a queue of people lining up outside the door - the work has to be done too. The first six months of the business were spent either in the office here (our premises) or in the office in my own home once 6 or 7pm passed. Often was the case of sitting at the desk from 8:30am to 10, 11, 12 at night and beyond. Often was the case too that you’d find yourself still on the go at 3 or 4am with buckets of coffee, burning the candle at both ends. Hell, it took me 18 months to give in and take an actual break (when I got to Toronto last Christmas) But it does pay off. At least I think it does anyway.

While I look forward to a third year in business, which by our estimates back at day one should be a busy year for us, I look back on the last two years full in the knowledge that I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Not the celebrations after a job well done, not the sleepless nights and headaches, not the winter days, not the sunny days baking at 33 degrees in the office - none of it. Best thing about it is that even after growing up with someone, living with that same person for 4 years in college and working with them for 2 years there’s still n’aer a bad word said in the office - it just works.

So on that long winded note I say “Happy Birthday” to us and here’s to another year.

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To The Theatrical Entrepreneurs, My Thanks For Last Week

As I mentioned before the weekend, I’ve been intermittent with the blog posts, thanks very largely in part to a hectic schedule for the past week.
Saturday night saw the curtain fall on Heart Shaped Vinyl after four consecutive sold-out nights. More amazing was the amount of people we had to turn away from the show.

While I’ve posted on DeviousTheatre.com some thanks on behalf of the cast and crew I’d like to step aside and thank the cast and the core off Devious Theatre, the committee. A pure bunch of professionals are John Morton, Kevin Mooney, David Thompson, Niamh Moroney and new additions Paddy Dunne and Amy Dunne, not only pure professionals but every single one a delight to work with, eat with, drink with.

I enjoyed the show last year, doing something quite new and very different for the Kilkenny scene. A year onwards and we’ve learned an awful lot. Although not having been to any of the Opencoffee mornings around the country, I would liken our Sunday morning coffees and meetings to them in the sense of being a great opportunity to chat, discuss new ideas, develop plans, forge new beginnings and most importantly to learn from one another. We each work different jobs, different times, some shift work, some study so Sunday is a great opportunity for us to meet together.

For me it has been a real learning experience. I’ve been in and out of theatre over the years, college placing some restrictions on me which I’m trying to make up for but since the formation of the group it has been non-stop work on the theatre. There’s no pay involved but yes, we were privileged to receive some arts funding this year to help with the mammoth cost (looking at a potential five figure sum for our summer programme). 4,000 Euro is a drop in the ocean to larger companies but its a pot of gold to us and we’ll be using it to part finance the development of Cannibal! The Musical, rehearsals of which commence tomorrow (Tuesday).

I see us as theatrical entrepreneurs. Developing new ideas, committing our time, resources, energy - no fear of taking the risk to pull off daring shows. We’ve got the budgeting down too, using the best of our connections, knowledge from studies and jobs and every free resources thats going. Everyone has a role and the jobs all get done. This last week it certainly paid off.

With all that said, I want to reiterate my thanks to the bunch that meet on Sunday mornings, without who The Devious Theatre Company would not be standing. May we continue to be as daring and long may we continue to stuff ourselves stupid in The Coffee Club on Sunday mornings. The long hours, sleepless nights and my now completely shot voice and horrendous lack of energy were soooo worth it.

Are You Open For Coffee In Cork This Morning?

Sure, I’m not from Cork but thought I’d give the Cork OpenCoffee morning a wee net-plug anyway, think they’re a pretty good idea. Dublin’s one took off recently with a big bang in Morrisson’s hotel but if you’re in Cork this morning, pop your head into Luigi Malone’s for a crackin’ cup of coffee and a chin-wag with fellow entrepreneurs and business investors.

Kick-off is 10am.

First Woman Entrepreneur Of The Year

Good sign of the times this as Anne Heraty has scooped the Ernst And Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Award.

Via Aertel…

Anne Heraty, founder and chief executive of CPL Resources, has become the first woman to win the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards.

She was named as winner of the international category before receiving the coveted overall title last night.

South East Women In Business

This Wednesday sees the Kilkenny County Enterprise Board present “Head Right For Success”, South East Women in Business conference 2006. The conference will be held in Lyrath House, on the main Kilkenny to Dublin road (handy if you’re travelling from Dublin or Carlow).

While setup and registration will take a while, the conference gets underway at 11am. Speakers on the day include Fiona Brown Johnson (Brook Cottage), Catherine McGeachy (Vision Consultants) and Kilkenny’s own blogger/consultant/entrepreneur Keith Bohanna who will be “talking about dbTwang and in particular looking at some of the great free and very cheap online and offline software and services that are available for internet start-ups today”. For those of you not in the know, dbTwang is a very interesting startup and online service for guitar collectors, which I have had the pleasure of working on myself.

In the afternoon there will be a 90 minute networking session followed by Terry Harmer and Nicole Buckler of the Women Mean Business magazine.

Full details are available here, tickets are €25 with limited exhibition space also available.

Make Money Feeding iPods

This one straight out of Dane Carlon’s blog tells of an entrepreneuring idea helping people put music on their iPods. You’ve heard all about them, you want one, haven’t a clue how to use it or get your hundreds of cd’s onto the damn thing. Well, now for $1.75 a cd for the first 50 with Hungrypod you can have your entire cd collection picked up and transferred onto an iPod and delivered right back to you….

Where there’s a demand, there’s always someone hiding!

Happy Birthday To Us

According to the business certificate here in the office, we’re officially one year old, so happy birthday to us! The fact that I’ve still got a job and there’s now three of us working here I would consider a good thing. Maybe now we can afford those blank cd’s we’ve been meaning to order all week….

Planning for the business had started a long time and really got frantic about two months before we kicked off last July (of course at 22 years old you still wonder are you a bit mad) but I think that after 12 months we’re exactly where we had really hoped to be if not better - can’t be going too bad!

My other little baby, Kilkenny Music, is also heading for its first birthday this coming September so no doubt there’ll be a wee party there as that has developed quite quickly in itself! All I need now is for Devious Theatre (that baby is just 2 months old so we’ve a bit to go yet) to hit the headlines and we’re all set.

But you know what? I love every minute of it - wouldn’t trade the design, the music, or the theatre for anything. Mind you, I’ve no idea where the last 12 months have gone….! It might come back to me after a celebratory pint and a steak tomorrow night

Bill Lynch - Entrepreneur Of The Year

He took the South African Entrepreneur Of The Year award and now Irish-born and bred Bill Lynch has been named the 2006 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year.

On speaking about where he gets his drive (about two weeks ago)…

I think it comes from a competitive element, it comes from talking about it, it comes about from making promises, maybe as a young person, as a teenager might say to his or her parents, “I want to do my own thing”. Somebody says, “I want to become a teacher or a doctor”. And another person says, “I want to have my own little business” or maybe later on in life, they are walking somewhere and they’re not happy and they might say, “I think I’ll do my own thing, I can’t put up with this type of bureaucracy or the way I’m being treated, and I will reach out to do my own business”. So it’s like talking about it.

I don’t think it’s a secretive type of thing that is in you that you are an entrepreneur. I think you become one by articulating ambition and above all, getting down to it and doing something, even though it might be modest. Very educated people often might say, “I have to do something that’s a complete breakthrough” like an Einstein or somebody like Edison, somebody that does something that they are great at – like Bill Gates.

But we are actually talking now about a business entrepreneur, somebody who starts up a small business, that grows the business by entrepreneurship. And I think that arises from discourse with your family and your friends and your colleagues in a business environment, and ideas. Every couple of people that sit down, a new idea almost emerging from it, talking about it. As a person thinketh, so they shall be. I say, as they thinketh and articulate and express themselves, so they shall be.

Lynch built up Imperial Holdings into South Africa’s largest transport group and now employs over 36,000 people across the globe. Its taken him 30 years to get the business to this stage, tip of the hat to him from the Irish I think…. Read the May interview here or check out coverage in the New Zealand Herald.

Real Entrepreneurs Don’t Spend Ad Money

Launching the business last year we spent a certain amount on repeat advertising in the local press - black and white ads, full colour ads, single column, double column, large ads, front page, back page…. it all adds up and doesn’t get you a real return. I don’t really agree with newspaper advertising to be fair, I see it more like a necessary evil. Papers gotta fill space, you gotta advertise your services.

With Kilkenny Music, I keep the advertising spend to near null. It might cost me 20 euro to financially promote an event or gig where I can generate several hundred euro in return (providing people turn up of course). I could look at running promotion in the newspaper of course, and pay up to several hundred euro and still end up with the same amount of people in the venue.

So the numbers might be a bit different. Small business, with big products, and another venture with small products but massive repeat business and massive longevity.
So Dane Carson’s recent article, guest authored by Matthew Lesko in his crazy blue question mark suit raises a point…

“Anybody Can Spend Money On Advertising But Real Entrepreneurs Don’t Pay Rate Card, And If They’re Real Clever, They Figure Out A Way Not To Pay Anything Up Front At All”

While I consider myself a beginner to the world of business and looking after your own business ventures, I like the final quote. If there is a way not to pay anything up front at all - or anything at all for that matter - you will find it, and should find it.

Go out and get a little creative if you can! Or just read the article…. goes down well with a cup of tea and some of those large Cadbury’s cookies we got this morning