The Small Business Column: Start-up Weekend Limerick

In this week’s article, Kehlan Kirwan looks at Start-up Weekend Limerick, which has become more than simply a 54-hour start-up event for developing new business ideas and is becoming part of an entrepreneurial movement    

If you want something done, you’ve got to do it yourself.

Limerick wants to be the start-up capital of Ireland and it’s proving that it very well could be? — and sooner than you’d think.

Last weekend I spent three days at the Limerick Start-up Weekend event which brings people together to produce ideas on a start-up business, and validate them. It is a joy to watch and if you think it’s not possible to start a business in a weekend, then you haven’t been to one of these events.

Limerick currently sits at an exciting point in its business and start-up future. It is becoming an

increasingly enticing prospect for established and start-up companies.

The city has a number of

regeneration projects on the go and barring poor decision-making (like setting up yet another

shopping centre on the city’s edge), it is improving its cultural image as well.

Go to events like Start-up Weekend and you expect to see people buzzing around and testing ideas.

However, this time around something had changed from the event held six months earlier.

This time it was all business. There was no hanging around chatting about ideas, as Start-up Weekend Limerick organiser Shane McCarthy announced on the Saturday morning. “You can’t validate ideas sitting at a desk, you need to be out there talking with your target audience. They will tell you whether your idea has life or not,” Mr McCarthy said.

SW Limerick is compact and less showy than its

bigger brothers in Dublin and Cork, but it shines at bringing people together.

The surrounds of the

Nexus Centre at the University of Limerick are tight and compact, forcing you into the mindset that you are part of something much greater than simply starting a business. You’re representing the city and the best that it has to offer.

From life jackets to growing quinoa, the diversity was amazing. It all begins by being brave. You have an idea and you have to stand up and pitch it.

There was a theme running through the weekend, with the businesses that made it past Friday night’s pitching session all wanting to make a difference. Saving lives; tackling obesity; making it easier to grow fruit and veg; or creating a smart helmet that can tell motorcyclists of oncoming dangers. This was all about what good can be brought to people’s lives. Changing things for the better and making money while you do it.

Like all start-up weekends the key to success was validation. Going out and getting your target market to endorse your product, or getting people to sign up to your service.

These are the things that really matter when you’re starting out on your business journey. It is something that every business should do in the beginning but sadly, many don’t. Many people start off with what they believe are great ideas, but do not test them or get validation.

There are no mistakes here. No jobs at risk or bad ideas, there is only making something work. If that means you have to move off in different tangents or make major changes, then that is what you do.

Success is not made by letting ideas sit on a shelf; you have to make them real. What’s more, you need the fortitude to see them through. It became apparent pretty early on that this group of start-ups was not simply in pursuit of ideas, but in pursuit of realities. They wanted something to show after the weekend was over — a business that would work in reality and not simply on a slide for final pitches on Sunday evening.

Scrutiny comes with the territory on these weekends too. If you don’t take constructive criticism well, then this event is not for you. Mentors who have been there and done that in their own business were hovering around for the whole weekend. People who had built successful companies gave advice.

They were also there to open up the network of what is possible. Never underestimate the power of networking or exploiting it to suit your ends. Never miss an opportunity to talk to decision-makers. From Pat Phelan at Trustev to Dairygold, connections were made and used. Big thinkers endorsing ideas that were barely 24 hours old is something impressive in itself. This is just an example of what Limerick and the entrepreneurs of the city are aiming to do over the next decade. They want the city to be the start-up capital of Ireland; the go-to place for new businesses in the country.

From banks and venture capital funds to entrepreneurs and councils, it is imperative that everybody has the same vision for the city. Limerick Port will soon have major investment in place to create a bigger and better port for goods to flow in and out of the city. Champions such as JP McManus and the Collison brothers are proof that the city can produce exciting new thinkers and doers.

Like all start-up scenes there is a need for major multinationals to be on the landscape as well.

Limerick has some of the best companies in the world, working from industrial zones across the city. They will be the drivers of innovation and ideas over the next number of years, just as much as individual entrepreneurs themselves.

Startup Weekend is a window into a wider world of the future for the city. There is a belief that it can be the beginning of not only showcasing, but being at the forefront of a movement that exposes the progress within its city limits.

You may not believe that it can become the start-up capital of Ireland, but many would also have said that you can’t start a business in 54 hours.