Ireland’s entrepreneurs on their lightbulb moments, tips for start-ups and AI

The Pitch 2024 is back! Ireland’s most exciting national business competition is offering the chance to win a game-changing €100,000 business acceleration package to the ultimate winner.

Karen Clince, Founder of Tigers Childcare

What was your lightbulb moment?

As a resource teacher in a primary school, I watched parents stressed running on lunch breaks to collect children from school and drop them to their childcare options. I saw unhappy children heading off to unsuitable preschool settings where they complained of being bored and having nothing to do. I thought, “There has to be better than this” for parents and for children.

Going to school as a young girl in Sydney, Australia, my siblings and I went to after school. We had time to relax with our school friends in an unstructured environment after our school day. We loved it. And so, I approached the school principal about starting a childcare programme at the school I worked in, and Tigers Childcare was born.

I was determined it would be a place where children were loved and felt they belonged, and where parents felt supported. Our culture was there from the start, and this has been the key to our success over the years.

What’s one piece of advice you have for someone who wants to start or accelerate their own business?

Take the leap. I always planned forward. I hired people before I needed them. This generally meant in the short-term smaller margins, but any good strategic hire I made ended up earning the business more than their wage in a relatively short time. It also meant I had the structures in place for successful growth. The business I am in is about quality; quality is key and so as we grow it is imperative for me to keep high quality. We can only do this where the right planning, structures and feedback exist.

I am a big believer in believing in yourself. Having the ability to dream up an idea and imagine it playing out is so important. When I view a new service, I imagine how it would feel at Tigers if I brought it in and what I would change. The ability to sit over the project and think it through strategically has always helped me. I guess some people call it manifesting now, for me it always involved a bit of dreaming, but seemingly dreams can become reality with a bit of planning, foresight and belief.

What is the most important characteristic of being a successful and resilient entrepreneur?

I try to never see anything as a failure: I am either winning or learning. When things are tough or do not go to plan, which is inevitable, it has been helpful to give myself a moment, dust myself down and then ask myself, “What is the learning here?”. I also feel it is so important to be transparent when things go wrong. Admit it to colleagues and customers. Things will always go wrong in business, but it’s how you behave and handle it that matters to people.

It is also important to know resilience is bred from bouncing back from adversity and having good people around you cheering you on and telling you that you can recover when things go wrong.  So, when things go wrong remember it all makes you a little stronger and keep your cheerleaders close to you to remind you, you can do it when you lose hope.

AI – friend or foe in business?

I think it is coming for us all so we may as well make it our friend.  As long as we don’t use it as our only source of truth, we will be okay. I find it helpful for a crash course in anything when I need quick information.

What was the biggest challenge in business you had to overcome?

I feel my biggest challenge is still ahead. The current biggest risk to my business is people: pay and conditions are driving incredibly qualified talented people out of the sector. My role has become incredibly political and I have a huge fight on my hands to get pay and conditions to where it needs to be in the childcare sector. I am currently knee-deep in political manifestos, trying to educate politicians that the answer to this problem is not a difficult one if we could just get enough funding. We could have one of the best early years systems in the world, but the government’s lack of commitment and understanding means there is a huge level of frustration with colleagues and families who find it so difficult to source childcare places, while paying high fees for the pleasure of it.

Peigín Crowley, founder of Ground Wellbeing

What was your lightbulb moment?

There was no lightbulb moment for me. It was a coming of age in terms of my experience and my confidence that culminated in lockdown when I had no choice because all my other business had fallen away – all the spas were closed and all the consultancy projects were stalled. I had a brand in me, it was in my belly and I was just brave enough to do it.

I also think the timing was excellent, the world was ready for a brand that was unafraid to talk about sleep, anxiety, burnout, and menopause. While we don’t speak about how we project ourselves to the outer world, we are about our inner world, our balance, our striving to find peace and slowing down in our lives so the timing was excellent. My confidence and bravery were there and I was forced to do it – I had to earn money. It was a seize the moment – I knew it was the time to do it. I was lucky because we had some savings and we threw that at it. So, there were a few things that came into line for it that I am grateful for.

What’s one piece of advice you have for someone who wants to start or accelerate their own business?

My advice to someone who wants to start a business or accelerate a business is, if it’s something you can dip your toe in while you’re in full-time employment, and, you know, run, run and test the market, I would try and do so till you find a point where you feel secure enough with your earnings to move into it. I think nowadays, businesses are set up on a whim. People fund different things, and at the end of the day, it is really hard, and you need two things for a business to succeed.

You need to really love what you do. So on the bad days, you still feel attached, and you also need to believe in yourself. You have to back yourself. You have to go all in on yourself and wear your heart on your sleeve and get out there and market it yourself. In terms of founder sales, founder-led sales will always be the strongest. So, I think if someone’s thinking of setting up, you have to make sure your project is feasible. Don’t leave your job until you know you’re onto something. But if it’s something you love to do and that you found a niche, you do need to back yourself. It’s an exciting space to be in, but it’ll knock you down as much as it’ll lift you up. It’s tough going. You’d need your full mental health, let’s say, and chemically balanced body. So that’s what I’d say.

AI – friend or foe in business?

At Ground, we live at the other end of the spectrum. We are Team Human, Team Touch. We are high touch in terms of treatment, breathwork, touching the body, ritualising ourselves – you just can’t get a robot to help with that. In terms of business, it certainly has its place but it won’t live front and centre with us.

What is the most important characteristic of being a successful and resilient entrepreneur?

The most important characteristic is grit and tenacity and not taking it personally. Just because you open a restaurant tomorrow, you can’t expect all your friends and family to keep you in business. You need a solid, solid product that you’re proud of and again, that you believe in. And I guess for me, we speak about resilience a lot.

For me, it’s understanding the difference between capability and capacity. And while I’m a very capable person, and I’ll work very hard, capacity has become more important to me over the years. In terms of family, I have children, I have a husband, I have a lovely home life, and saying “yes” to some things means saying “no” to them. So just getting the balance right in your life as well. There’s no point in becoming a workaholic. You’ve got to understand your own capacity and then build in your capability. If you go capability first, it will own you. And some other things – grit, tenacity and not taking things personally . . . they are all really important.

What was the biggest challenge in business you had to overcome?

The biggest challenge is, and has been, cash flow and managing money. It’s never been my strong point, and I’ve certainly hired to strengthen that around me. Ireland’s a difficult place to do business, and it’s very expensive. Employers, PRSI, holidays, sick pay, everything you know, minimum wage, it’s all there, and I’m delighted it’s stacked up for the employee. But as a small business, it’s tough to neutralize or make a profit. It’s just an expensive country to do business in. So cash flow and profitability are where I struggle. But I also believe if you build it, they will come. And rather than focus on cutting costs, build it to the best of your ability, and it will come. And that’s kind of what we’re working on, and it’s seeming to go our way. I hope that helps.

Oonagh O’Hagan, owner and MD of Meagher’s Pharmacy Group 

What was your lightbulb moment? 

I started my life in pharmacy after qualifying from Trinity College and working as an intern pharmacist in Meagher’s Pharmacy on Baggot Street. From the moment I crossed the threshold of this pharmacy, I dreamt of owning it. I absolutely loved the community and the diverse range of customers who visited each day. I could feel the presence of many generations of customers that were serviced by the Meagher’s family since 1921. I often say that the walls talk to me and I still feel that to this day. Throughout my years of placement with Mr Meagher, I could see how I could add to the incredible work that he was doing and I plucked up the courage to ask him, on my last day, the question I had wanted to ask him every day that year, which was, “If you are ever selling your pharmacy would you let me know?”

I am so grateful that I did ask this question because four years later I got the call and as a result of really stepping outside my comfort zone, my dream came true and I became the very proud owner of Meagher’s Pharmacy on Baggot Street in Dublin.

What’s one piece of advice you have for someone who wants to start or accelerate their own business?

Go for it! There is never the right time to start a business. You won’t have all the answers and you will feel afraid at times, for sure, but that is totally normal. If your gut is telling you that it is for you, then you must listen to that inner feeling. That feeling is rarely wrong, especially if it is an area that you are incredibly passionate about. If you have a love for what you do, then it will never feel like work and you will feel totally in flow.

What is the most important characteristic of being a successful and resilient entrepreneur?

Inner self-belief. There will be plenty of ups and downs along the road, growth is never in a straight line but every time you get a knockback, look at it with an open and positive mindset, ask yourself what this is telling you and then look at how you need to adapt to grow again. There is a great Japanese proverb I love which states, “Fall down seven times, get up eight”. You must believe you will figure out a way and you must get back up again.

AI – friend or foe in business?

Friend. If we can really channel AI correctly then it should assist with reducing so many manual and repetitive tasks and free up our best asset, our people, to do much more creative work and to engage more with our customers which is always great for business!

What was the biggest challenge in business you had to overcome?

During the financial crisis, the government brought in a series of financial cuts under Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (FEMPI) legislation which totally changed our pharmacy fee structure and had a massively negative effect on my pharmacies. We had very little time to adapt and the last thing I wanted to do was to lay off any of our people, so we had to make radical changes to our business very quickly. They were very frightening days, but I am very proud to have led our team through those difficult days and to go on to grow and diversify the Meagher’s business from a traditional pharmacy business to looking after customers now, not only in the physical world but now serving customers digitally the length and breadth of Ireland and across 70 countries worldwide.

Are you an entrepreneur seeking to accelerate your business? 

The Pitch 2024, an IMAGE Media and Samsung Electronics Ireland partnership, is back!

Applications are now open to entrepreneurs, start-ups or SMEs for their chance to win a prize worth €100,000, comprising a tailored Samsung technology package, a multi-channel IMAGE media campaign, and business mentoring from one of Ireland’s best-known entrepreneurs.

Now in its third year, The Pitch has already supported Jennifer Rock, CEO and founder of the Skin Nerd and multi-award winning Skingredients skincare range, and Karl Swaine, Niall Horgan and Diarmuid McSweeney, founders of Gym+Coffee, an Irish-owned and thriving designed athleisure brand, to bring their businesses to the next level. 

How it works

The competition has two stages. Stage One involves sharing your business story in writing or by video through the application form here before October 18. Your application should provide evidence of your business’s potential growth and viability. 

If you progress to Stage Two, this is when you have the chance to live pitch your business as a finalist of The Pitch 2024 in front of a panel of five judges. This is your Dragons’ Den-style pitch where you have seven minutes to bring your business story to life, to share your vision, your success to date and your goals for the future.

Along with the other finalists, you will pitch live in front of the judges and an audience in Dublin City Hall on Friday, November 1 at 6pm.

Key dates

Applications close on Friday, October 18 at 1pm. Application online here.

The live Pitch event is on Monday, November 11 in Dublin City Hall.

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