What has really changed is the attitude of the money people, not enough I agree but a lot. The other thing that has changed, and to be fair the IDA was a mover here, is that IT and related activity is more suited to Ireland’s situation, brain based, low start-up costs (compared to ‘industry’) and changes are possible in mid-stream.

EI and its like are for those who don’t really want to take risks and/or have political support.

I was to meet two people about some paperwork we had to fill out.
The night before the meeting i locate the relevant form on the EI web site.
I fill it in to save time at the meeting.

When the two people saw the filled out form they recoil in disgust…..”that form is out of date!”. “sorry”, I say, “but I just got it from the web site last night “.

“no no. you can see from the id code that it is out of date.”
Then they packed up and left promising to email me the latest template and arranging a follow up in a couple of weeks.

When I compared the ‘old’ form to the ‘new’ form
The only difference was that a fax number field was missing on the new form.

s’true.

Being able to pursue an idea for year via a funding mechanism is useful.

Like any state organisation there are brillant and not so brillant people working there.

Venture Capitalists are not angels in disguise and often want more than the state funded organisations want and on this side of the pond want hell of lot of financial data etc Does any one remember the VC presentation at LIT in Sept 07?

The need to monetise and devlope an exit strategy is often not there at the start and this someting VCs insist on the state funded ventures do allow companies to find their own feet and detemine their own strategy.

The culture of failure in Ireland and the stigma attached is being driven more my the banks and financial providers than state funded organisations.

We couldn’t open an account with some of the banks in our first startup when we were accquired by a US firm they suddenly started calling us. Those of you who remember trying to get a mortgage 10 – 15 years ago know what that is like. It took competition to shake up the mortgage market, it will take competition to shake up the business market.

Failure happens and I have learned alot from making mistakes. The american attitude is far healthier than the Irish. Banks take it as a personal insult if you fail and would never consider doing business with you again.

American VCs love doing business in America that why moving is the viable option for a quick access to funds. For those of us who are now married, kids etc this is not the most attractive option. Therefore we do what we can by utilising the assets here in Ireland as well as networking.

Open coffee for me is revelation, where else can you meet talk and exchange ideas in a free and open minded environment. We need to build on these ideas and develop and improve the situation we have here. the Paddys Valley trip is a great example of this.

The far away hills are always green but for some of us living, raising a family and working in Ireland offers us a way of life that we could not have in the USA.

We need to push the social networking agenda and utilise the govt agencies where appropriate. The failure stigma has to change and this will start with the banks and financial institutions.

We may not fix things overnight but we can to certain extent through social networking etc improve the current situation.

Liam

Some of the brightest people I have ever dealt with and some of the most incompetent have been my connections with EI. Its amazing the range and how some people there put with it.

my 2 cent is to be very quick to drop the bad ones and forget about it. Just call back and get someone else.
I’d also advise having someone like your accountant deal with them for financing etc. there is not enough time in the day for a CEO/entrepreneur to have to go through the mill with EI. If you are engaging outside finance/legal support then add ‘EI’ to their brief.

If you find they are walking a line you don’t agree with then just politely say no.
There is very little they can do about it and never ever let them make any decisions for you !

@Damien – “My issue is I don’t currently believe in state support via the EI process and believe it to be counter-productive for running a business.”

Damien do you actually run a business? Startups generally need all the help that they can get and sometimes that does mean dealing with EI. I think that a few of the people on the PV trip have had or do have dealings with EI. Startups can’t afford to close off potential avenues of support. The politics of dealing with EI or any state agency can take a while to learn but that learning who to talk to and how to talk to them in a way they can understand is part of any business.

Segala is an EI client but to be honest, they’ve done little to nothing. In fact, they have cost us a lot of money which I’m happy to talk about in the open.

Give them hell.

PS: You have no idea… how many times… it took me to re-type this.

I may be drunk, but I typed this sober. Go gett’em cowboy. I’m on your side.