We stayed at the hotel this morning, had a lecture just with our class over breakfast. After that, we had a 23 year-old entrepreneur, Alex Hamilton, give his experience of joining a start-up venture, Dublin New Web Summit, without any entrepreneurial experience. This kid had a lot of energy and I wouldn’t be surprised if we hear about him in a few years. After Alex we had Gordon McConnell, the Deputy CEO of the DCU Ryan Academy for Entrepreneurship and Director of Propeller Accelerator. (Ryan Academy is a subsidiary/business of DCU where we visited Monday)
This guy was great. He’s an energetic, experienced entrepreneur that tells it like it is. He talked a lot about his perspective as an entrepreneur and challenges of working with academics and start-ups. He’s moving to Tempe, AZ to work at ASU.
For lunch my team headed out to meet with Webroot (Dublin sales office, HQ in Colorado). However, we were barricaded on a bridge, even though we never saw the Queen’s motorcade, finally crossed another bridge that they opened up, but couldn’t get a taxi in time to get to Webroot’s office. Grabbed a dry sandwich at a pub, served by a Romanian waitress, which I think I was the only one at the table that thought that was fun. Yet, besides me, I know maybe one or two Americans that have been to Romania. After lunch, took a cab to Enterprise Ireland by the Dublin Port (which I will be boarding a ferry from next Saturday).
Enterprise Ireland is a business development agency that is also government-funded. EI runs a competitive fund of 50,000 Euro for startups in Ireland and international companies wanting to start in Ireland. It seemed they’re primarily interested in technology startups, especially if it’s going to be exported (as exporting is a key wealth generator for Ireland, especially now).
One of the guys that talked was an older Irish man, and had such a gentle voice with the Irish accent, that I could listen to him tell stories all day. Delightful.
After class, met up with my classmates for dinner at nicer pub in the Temple Bar District, right in front of a huge screen to watch the big soccer match between Brazil and I think Portugal (I wasn’t paying much attention). This is a big week for Dublin, the Queen’s visit alone is a huge deal, then thousands arrived for this big soccer match, this coming Saturday is the final rugby game for the Magner’s League (provincial Ireland rugby), thousands coming in for that, though I’ll be gone. President Obama will be in town on Monday I think, which I’ll miss because I’ll be in Derry. Would’ve been fun to attend a public speech by my president in Ireland. There’s probably something else going on next week, but I can’t think of it right now.
Have seen a lot of Irish men on the verge of a real fist fight, and have seen a couple of guys that were clearly in a recent fight. Cops do not wear guns in Ireland, though I’m sure there were some that had them for the Queen.
Forgot to mention in Tuesday’s blog that some of us girls had lunch in the Tea Room at the famous U2 hotel. Bono wasn’t there, he’s probably on his way to Denver for the upcoming concert.
Other takeaways from today’s class:
-Almost everyone we talk to mentions Europe’s work week in comparison to the US.
-It’s very difficult to start a company in Europe, as venture capital funding is really hard to obtain
-Technology is where it’s at.
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