INNOVATION MASTERCLASS: Part One:The first lesson when you have a big idea - ask for help: it's out there If you are at the ideas stage or have a partially developed business plan, Enterprise Ireland will help vet and validate your idea.
YOU'VE BEEN working for the same company for years, but want to strike out on your own. You have the bones of an idea for a product or business, but don't know where to go. There seems to be a multitude of agencies out there, but if you have been an employee for all of your working life, it can be confusing and daunting. Which agency can best help you?
"Regardless of going through the shopping list of services and programmes out there, contact an enterprise board or Enterprise Ireland," says Gerry O'Brien, who works on the front line for Enterprise Ireland's High Potential Start-Up unit.
"If you contact the wrong one, you should be signposted to the correct place. If you are just looking to start a business and feel there isn't any support for this, you should still contact the enterprise board. The enterprise boards are essentially the grassroots home for entrepreneurship. Even if you are not eligible for financial support from the enterprise board you will eligible for some element of advice on starting your own business."
County & City Enterprise Boards (CEBs) offer a range of complementary supports, according to Eibhlin Curley, deputy chief executive of Dublin City Enterprise Board.
"CEBs are a first port of call for those needing information and advice on how to go about setting up or expanding a micro business venture," she says.
The supports available from CEBs range from an initial "First-Stop Shop" service, where individuals can receive advice on the steps involved in setting up a business, to the provision of soft supports like training and mentoring, and grants for feasibility studies.
CEBs run 'Start Your Own Business' courses, designed to help people obtain and develop the necessary skills and knowledge to assess the marketing and financial viability of their idea. These courses are also open to those who would not normally be eligible for State support for setting up a company, such as those establishing a retail business trading locally.
For those looking to develop a high-tech or internationally traded business, it makes sense to contact Enterprise Ireland. If you are at the ideas stage or have a partially-developed business plan, Enterprise Ireland will help vet and validate your idea, challenge your plans, provide an indication of likely Enterprise Ireland support - either non-financial or financial - and suggest sources of information.
"If someone comes to us and says 'I want to a start a business but I don't know really where to go', a 'Start Your Own Business' course is always what we try to do," says O'Brien. "If we think they are more advanced, we can refer them to the EnterpriseStart programme."
EnterpriseStart is a programme for those looking to develop a technology- or knowledge-intensive business with export potential. The programme is 70 per cent subsidised by Enterprise Ireland, resulting in a cost per person of €275.
It is aimed at individuals currently in full-time employment who have an idea for a business, the commercial viability of which they wish to test.
The programme helps people make decisions about the feasibility of their idea and gives insights into the essential elements involved in creating a new enterprise.
"Those courses are run over six weeks and outside business hours which allows for people currently in employment, with an idea in the back of their head, to tease out the viability of that," says O'Brien. "At the end of the EnterpriseStart programme, each of the participants present to a member from Enterprise Ireland, the county enterprise board and whoever is running the programme - and we would use that as a kind of capture mechanism for identifying possible projects that we can support."
Entrepreneurs in third-level incubation programmes can also avail of Commercialisation of Research and Development (CORD) funding from Enterprise Ireland, which provides support for the development of third-level campus-based companies and support towards assessing the commercial viability of innovative technologies. "The important thing is to make contact - once you make initial contact with a state agency or arm of the state, there is a responsibility to try to point you in the best direction," says O'Brien.
NEXT MONTH: How to register your new business and the options available.
