Copacetic

I was at the Docklands Innovation Park Awards tonight to see Jonathan Mulligan of OpenPlain receive a cheque for €10,000 as the overall winner of the event.

OpenPlain is a subscription service that allows businesses to track the productivity of their employees by getting them to install a piece of software that monitors which applications are running and being used at any given point in time. It differs from the usual employee spyware in that it offers the user the ability to modify their own behaviour by showing them the stats that have been collected and comparing those stats with their peers. Yes I know, lots of people don’t like the idea of this kind of software, but so does Jon and more importantly he quantified it. 30% of customers won’t touch which leaves a very healthy 70% market share thank you very much.
Two other companies were up for the big prize. Pedantix (warning website has annoying audio), represented by Frank Fowley, and The Wealth Shop represented by Ray Langan.

Pedantix have developed automated software called FlightPAD. FlightPAD connects flight information display systems (aka, FIDS, the big board at the airport) with personal address systems and converts FIDS messages to PA messages that can be routed to wherever they are required. The software has been sold successfully to several Irish Airport authorities and their are obvious cross over markets to Malls, Train stations, bus stations etc.

The Wealth Shop is a retail play offering flat fee (€200) financial advice and planning to middle income earners (30-80k bracket) . They have software package that can produce a financial plan for each customer and they opened their first retail outlet in the OmniPark, Santry in Dec 2006. They have plans to open several more retail outlets over the coming year. I want Ray to do my presentations in the future, he was fantastic.
In general the quality of offerings and presentations were excellent and what was most encouraging was that all these businesses are currently revenue generating.
Three companies also won highly commended awards on the night, PutPlace.com (blush!), G20 Technologies and Tochar Technologies. The commended companies only got to do a 90 second elevator pitch, so I encourage you to visit their websites for the full story, as opposed to compressing it even more here.

The standard was universally high and it’s a crying shame there isn’t a dollar of VC available at the moment from the big players in the Irish market.

Enterprise Ireland where is that 175m when we need it?

One of my peers on Hot House 10, Mark Durkin,  launched his new company Paydaq over the weekend. Paydaq offers low cost money transfers (about one quarter the price of an equivalent Western Union transfer) for people wishing transfer cash overseas from Ireland.

The current service requires some leg work on the part of the applicant but they are moving to a fully automated web based system as the service matures over the coming months.
Paydaq is targetting the emerging Polish and Lithuanian markets initially, and  at launch offered services in both these languages.

See Paydaq.com for more information.

Below is an invite to the latest Hot House program. I will be completing this program in October and I can highly recommend it to anybody trying to start a company in Dublin.

PDC Accepting Applications for Hothouse 12

Good afternoon All,

Just a quick email to let you know that PDC is now accepting applications for our twelfth Hothouse programme which will begin on Thursday September 21^st. If you know of anyone who the Programme might benefit I’d be grateful if you would forward this information on to them.

Hothouse is a 12-month support and incubation programme aimed at graduate entrepreneurs with a knowledge-intensive technology-based innovative idea and with plans to develop and grow a business which will trade globally. There are 16 places available.

Very briefly the supports that are provided through Hothouse are as follows:

• Incubation space here in Docklands Innovation Park, free of charge for the duration of the Programme
• A series of twelve 2-day workshops in a variety of areas ranging from strategic business planning to marketing, raising investment to intellectual property issues. The sessions are facilitated by industry experts and are practical in nature, using participant businesses as working case studies
• Student training grant of €550 per month for each of the 12 months
• Business counseling – participants are allocated a mentor to work with them in a strategic capacity
• Access to the wider PDC network – PDC have been delivering programmes such as Hothouse for over 15 years
• The opportunity to apply for CORD funding from Enterprise Ireland, which can be worth up to 50% of their previous year’s salary up to a maximum of €38,000
• A structured evaluation process helping participants to prepare and deliver a strong business plan and the opportunity to graduate with a Post-graduate Diploma in New Business Development conferred by the Dublin Institute of Technology, subject to submission of a business plan at the end of the year that reaches a certain standard
• Access to DIT resources and expertise

Applicants are required to submit a short business proposal, approx. 8 - 12 pages, outlining their business proposition and providing information about their target market, competition, revenue model and key milestones moving forward. We also require a copy of their own CV and would be grateful if they could provide short bios of other team members, where relevant. Applications should be submitted by e-mail to me at this address.

For further information you can check out http://www.pdc.ie/development/startup/outline.asp. If you have any further questions please let me know.

Warm Regards

Bernadette O’Reilly

Centre Manager

Jarek’s on the same PDC hothouse program as me and he’s just started a blog. Good to see some of the other PDC hothouse founders online….