Know your customer, say entrepreneurs and investors in their advice to start-up founders.
Last week, I caught up with founders, investors and experts at the latest Founders’ Exchange event to ask if they had any tips for aspiring entrepreneurs.
Hosted by Enterprise Ireland and Silicon Republic, Founders’ Exchange offers a space for entrepreneurs to connect, network and tap support from each other, as well as from investors. Last Wednesday’s (3 December) event rounded off a year that began with the Founders’ Listening Tour in February.
The day kicked off with a panel discussion featuring two Irish founders who both recently announced €2m funding rounds each – Aisling Browne of Glitch and Patrick Guiney of DevAlly.
Browne and Guiney both reiterated throughout the chat the importance of a customer-focused strategy.
“Obsess about your customer, because without customer insights, you won’t build products that customers want,” Browne told SiliconRepublic.com after the panel discussion. Also, “get a really good co-founder”, she added.
Glitch is an AI-powered platform that offers businesses a range of ad campaign services. The start-up recently raised €2m in a seed funding round led by Elkstone.
Later that day, I met Enterprise Ireland’s head of start-ups and entrepreneurship Conor O’Donovan, who was also quick to bring up the importance of understanding customers’ needs. Furthermore, he urged entrepreneurs to maximise the resources available in Ireland.
“From access to talent, from grants, funding and through the support agencies like Enterprise Ireland and the local enterprise offices – really ensuring that you’re accessing the funding, the investment, the advice and the networks available through those entities,” he told me.
General partner with Delta Partners, Amy Neale also advised founders to focus on their potential customers and target market. She said that “relentless engagement” to ensure demand will help to avoid making unnecessary assumptions.
And for those seeking venture capital funding, her advice is to make sure the company is venture bankable. Meaning, founders need to target a massive global market and have an expectation that they are working towards a business exit that would give investors a substantial return.
While DevAlly’s Guiney highlighted a ‘go-getter’ mindset. “Go do it,” he said. “Send in the application, talk to the customer, talk to the VC. Whether it’s virtual doors, physical doors, knock on them.”
DevAlly is a digital accessibility start-up that aims to make the internet a more inclusive space. It recently raised €2m in pre-seed funding led by Miles Ahead, with support from Enterprise Ireland and the National Digital Research Centre.
And last year, the then less than one-year-old start-up made it to the top three position at the Slush 100 competition. Guiney told me that it was an overall lack of hesitation and a ‘go-getter’ mindset that allowed his company to make it to the top, despite the very difficult competition.
Senior client advisor with Enterprise Ireland, Micheal O’Dea echoes this idea. He told me that at the very early stages, the main focus is not the start-up, but the founder. “A lot of people assume it’s ideas that gets funding when in fact it’s not. It’s 80pc the founder, 20pc idea.”
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