A new mentorship programme organised by the MBA Association of Ireland in conjunction with the Guinness Enterprise Centre has just kicked off. In the coming weeks ‘The Irish Times’ will track its progress
WHILE ENTREPRENEURSHIP might now be taught by academics, nothing is more valuable to a business starting off than the expertise of someone who has known real success. Hard work and determination are the two fundamentals of successful entrepreneurship but if you can get some insider advice along the way too all the better. The MBA Association of Ireland (MBAAI) is the representative body for the 6,000 Masters of Business Administration (MBA) graduates in Ireland and is running a new mentorship programme with businesses housed in the Guinness Enterprise Centre (GEC) in Dublin.
Five companies have signed up with five mentors:
B-Smark – marketing software innovation
B-Smark has created an innovative marketing software platform – MySmark – which offers brands an emotional real time feedback service. The small company hopes that major international brands will catch on to their innovation. Easier said than done.
“Our main challenge now, which we hope our mentor can help with, is validation of the product,” explains B-Smark chief executive, Nicola Farronato. “We need endorsement from relevant brands but we also need some direction in terms of who to pitch to. Secondly, we need to be able to match that validation with our business model and marketing position. We have 1,000 test users and are now primarily leveraging businesses and talking to international brands in Italy, the USA, UK and Ireland.”
Mentor: Jacques Henry-Bezy, managing director of Bespoke and Beyond Marketing Consultants.
“I’ve had three meetings so far with B-Smark Technologies and it took me a while to precisely understand what was the business model. But since the third meeting I am now convinced of its market relevance. Nicola and his team are making good and rapid progress in the right direction.
“The main problem they face is demonstrating to large brands that they can enhance and simplify their understanding of the consumer base. It’s a novel product, so explaining its purpose is key. Once brands know what it is they will be very enthusiastic.”
Dovetail Technologies – Bespoke software development
“We build custom-made software,” explains co-founder Martin Wallace. “Whatever the client needs we can do – e-commerce, internal operating systems, web applications, mobile apps – anything that’s custom built. We set up in 2002 and have five full-time staff.
“We recently secured a large contract in the UK, which has given us a renewed confidence and interest in scaling up. We have proven to ourselves that we can do the work there and here. So we want to expand. We have just developed a product, custom software development company for other companies but we’ve also developed our own cloud-based product for community projects and hope for it to take off in the UK. Now we need to scale up and learn how to improve our sales and marketing strategy.”
Mentor: Robert Cooper, president of the MBAAI
“I am very optimistic about Dovetail,” he states. “They aren’t a new company. They’ve been involved in software development for a long time. They’re excellent technicians and strong in terms of operations and customer service. But at this point, they’re not leveraging that in the market place. I would say they’re weak on sales and marketing. They’re also moving from service offering into product offering. What they’re lacking in that area is a coherent strategy, which I can help them with.
“I can tell that they value having satisfied customers. That has to do with the fact that they are working ‘in’ the business rather than ‘on’ the business. But they need to start thinking about positioning themselves as principles of the business and that’s a major decision for them to make. Do they want to be technicians or managers?”
Bankhawk
“The global banking world is a labyrinth of different payment systems,” explains Bankhawk chief executive Brian Weakliam. “Banks make their own rules overseen by central banks and regulators. So there’s a huge amount of complexity in the banking world.
“We set up five years ago with the aim of building an analytics system to help customers demystify what’s going on in their banking system. We have already worked with several big companies. We know our service is good but we need a mentor to challenge our business plan. We’ve built an innovative product which is a brand new concept. There’s always been banking analytics for banks but not for customers. For the first time we can give customers the kind of information only banks have. But because our product is innovative there’s an education process with potential customers. We’re not selling widgets.”
Mentor: Ken Greene, chief operating officer of a major law firm
“I’d like to bring an outside perspective to a business that is small,” he says. “Secondly, my initial understanding of Bankhawk is that it’s a very good service that’s scalable and can target industries, both large and small, across many sectors. So I’ll assist them in the sales front. They could do a lot of one-off jobs hits but the key to their development is getting repeat sales.”
Arran Healthcare Innovative disinfection technologies
“The company was incorporated in 2010 and we have developed a new breakthrough product for infection control and prevention in the healthcare sector,” says chief executive Paul Maguire. “Specifically we’re targeting disinfection of mattresses, known to act as a reservoir for a range of harmful pathogens, including MRSA. There are no gases or chemicals in our mattresses and they are highly effective. It destroys any pathogens present. There are four full-time staff in the company but we have a number of contracts and consultants we work with.
“We have no clients at this point. We are still finishing the product development, transferring to the manufacturing stage and commencing our regulatory applications. Our big challenge is selling into the healthcare sector. There’s a lot of pressure at the moment in terms of cost but we’re confident our new piece of technology is more effective than what’s currently being used. But we need validation and routes to the marketplace.”
MentorPeter Scallan, former executive director of Celtic Linens
“Their first challenge is finding a route into the healthcare market,” he says. “It’s not going to be easy and they won’t achieve it in the timescale they had previously envisaged. It’s hard to crack the market, but once it’s cracked, they’ll have plenty of opportunities.
“Their product is very innovative, which is to their advantage. But they’re moving into what’s a very conservative market, both from a legislative point of view, but also the healthcare sector tends to rely on the tried and trusted companies. Their prospective clients tend to look for well-established companies, which is a huge barrier for start-ups. So they’ll need to connect with an established company and go along with them.
“Also, public sector tenders generally require a company to be of a certain size and to have existed for a certain period of time before they will work with them. This prohibits start-up companies. So this is another obstacle they’ll need to overcome.”
Content Kings – Communications and high-quality content providers
“We had all been working in publishing and we noticed over the years that a lot of client content can be sub-standard,” says Brian O’Neill of Content Kings. “So we decided to set up a company to assist businesses in getting their message out there, in particular turning offline companies into successful online businesses through social media, website content, blogs, etc.
We already have had several clients but we need to scale up and figure out how to increase revenue through ongoing retainers and contracts that are more than just one-off service provision.”
Mentor: Declan Bourke
“By coincidence I’ve met the guys from Content Kings before and I’ve always been impressed with their enthusiasm. When the mentorship came up, by random selection they were partnered with me. And I’m happy about that.
“As an entity, Content Kings has a bright future, but they need to work out some projections moving forward and get a better grip on what will lead to greater revenues. They also need to figure out what their goals are: is it to build a strong company or to sell it on? The biggest challenge – which is not unique to Content Kings – is cash flow.
Driving sales and managing cash flow should be their main aims at this point. But I’m optimistic. Given the state of the Irish economy, their progress thus far has been very impressive.”
