These days my hands are very much tied by college. I’ve about 3 months left which is nothing in the grand scheme of things but i could do quite a lot right now if i wasn’t in college…
10
Feb
2011
it’s all about the future
26
Oct
2010
digg gets buried
What is it with big social giants tumbling down these days? Is this a sign we’re in for another dot com bubble burst or is it just really poor management and a lack of vision? I’d go with the latter…
17
Dec
2009
it’s the big one tomorrow
Tomorrow at about 3.20pm, i’ll know whether i’ve passed or failed all my modules this year in college. It’s an exam on broadband technologies.
photo credit: charmcitygavin
Sounds interesting, it’s not. It’s all about connections and packets and remembering diagrams, values & doing some maths. Useful? No. Interesting? No. Will i ever apply the knowledge i’ve gained in it in real life? No. That’s my two cents of course, perhaps someone else loves it… (however nobody in my class does).
The exam tomorrow is worth 70% of the overall marks for the subject, making it the most important exam of them all. It just so happens to be my worst subject too so this is the only one that i’m approaching with caution.
28% out of 100% is what i need tomorrow to pass. That’s the target. So realistically, i’ll be aiming to pass the exam (get 40%) and that will then allow me about 15% leeway for any over-estimating i’ve done (but i normally get it right to within 5-10% max). A very militant approach, but that’s what has to be done – it’s business.
After tomorrow’s exam, i’ll be focusing on my own projects & a few other sites i’m working on. They’ll keep me busy until about mid-january when i head back to college.
27
Feb
2009
Irish Dragons Den – 27th feb
The 2nd episode of the Irish Dragons Den aired tonight. Here’s some of the better ideas…
hen-party.ie
Kate was looking for €30,000 in return for 20% of the business (website catering for hen parties). Kate presented very well and much like the pedigree cattle lads last week, came across as passionate and ambitious. I hate when the dragons quiz people on figures and insist on specific figures – the reality is people pick figures from the sky – you cannot accurately predict how a website will do and how quickly it will develop.
Thankfully, two dragons invested though. Kate got €30k but sold 40% of the business. I think it’s a decent idea but again, like pedigree cattle, a limited market. It needs a huge social networking campaign to get going – that’s where the target market is imo – on bebo/facebook etc… even if those people don’t directly use the site, they’ll have friends who will. All it takes is some creativity or novelty value – even a facebook/bebo application to create interest.
Kate also owns henparty.ie without the dash but was worried google would penalize her in the serps. If it were me, i’d cut my losses and switch to henparty.ie ASAP. The hash will kill a lot of potential traffic.
The competition isn’t fierce either in google, starting a new site & hitting the frontpage is do-able very quickly – if i had time i would take it on as a challenge 
but looking at he competition, i think kate is safe switching to henparty.ie – a drop in rankings would only be temporary at worst. Do not fear google – quality and useful sites will always be rewarded, eventually.
sals pizza
Tony gave a decent presentation. He’s got italian links and his business is selling homemade pizzas, mainly to rural areas. Nice idea, but what put me off was the fact he was working from his own converted garage.
Obviously cash is needed to buy proper premises & equipment but it just put me off straight away. One of the dragons picked up on it too and questioned the legality of it all. That effectively killed any interest in the business. But apart from that, the whole set up looked pretty prefessional and i thought it had decent potential, but would need way more investment.
Again, like a lot of these decent ideas / businesses, they would have done well a few years ago but with cash so tight these days, i don’t know many people who would order a pizza (regularly) when they can buy a frozen one for a few euro.
Sals pizza is also on twitter by the way 
Small businesses could learn a lot from Tony – a website (a useful website with menu, prices etc..) & an active twitter account – that’s how it’s done
Kaylight
Adrian’s ‘kaylight’ (not sure if that’s the correct spelling) is basically a set of LED’s integrated in to bags to illuminate them when opened. Clever. Very clever. None of the dragons asked about water damage or heat etc… i’m not sure how well it would hold up?
Anyway, Adrian had me in stitches. He called it a ‘winter project’, he has other stuff on during the summer and basically he was gonna get a patent and proper plans for the products and then sell them on
He also used some really strange examples of why the product would come in useful; he gave an example of a girl using a lighter to illuminate the bottom of her bag – she could then set fire to her own hair and this product could help solve that problem – WTF!!
He also had literally zero profit projection figures to give which i thought would have killed the dragon’s interest completely, but remarkably, no…
He got the investment – €10,000 for 25% of the business (he was originally giving away 5% – i laughed at that!). Still, this is an excellent idea and although i don’t like the prototype (with wires and batteries hanging out), a slimline, white led version would definitely sell and i’d buy a bag with this feature for sure.
The prototype was using a big battery (not an AA, but a flat one of similar size from what i could tell). It was also using red LED’s??? Why not white LED’s? they would give out more light!
Flaws with show
On the end shot with Richard closing the show, the camera was zooming in and out as if a child was playing with it – looked very unprofessional imo. Also, the word ‘entrepreneur’ is pronounced ‘on-tra-pren-ur’, not ‘on-trop-on-ur’ like Richard keeps saying – surely someone has picked up on this and told him how to pronounce it properly??? At first i thought it was some clever irish term for an entrepreneur but no, other people have noticed it too… maybe i’m missing something though??
20
Feb
2009
Irish Dragons Den – First Impressions
The first Irish Dragon’s Den aired tonight on RTE 1 @ 10.15pm. I’m a fan of the British version. I also spent a hell of a lot of time working on my own parody version last semester in college.
In summary, i thought the ideas/businesses lacked bang and wow factor. I don’t think any of them will make millions or go global… here’s a few of them (all bar the last received no investment);
Clean Cash
Cash register that cleans money – at first i thought “Hmm, that’s interesting…” until one of dragons pointed out that in order to take the cash back out, it has to be handled by 2 people – the till operator and the customer – making the whole idea somewhat useless.
Aqua Images
This was a great niche business – selling tropical fish & tanks to businesses and offering maintainence for a monthly fee. Would have worked 2 or 3 years ago, but not now… no business is gonna pay to buy and look after a fish tank – unless they lay off another staff member to cover the costs Might be worth a gamble though when the economy starts to pick up again – i can see hotels, restaurants, leisure clubs etc… investing in these.
Mums Town
I had a quick look at this site and what stood out for me is that it’s part funded by the EU and louth enterprise board. I’m curious as to how much actually went in to it 
I suppose it has legs – i can see it working somewhat but again it’s a really limited niche. The site could pay for itself but as a business – i can’t see anyone making a living from it.
Pedigree Cattle
I was impressed by these guys – they presented well and come across as passionate and hard working. Not surprisingly, 4 of the 5 dragons were interested, all offering to invest and they were spoilt for choice in the end. The site is pretty woeful if i’m honest but i’m sure it was created on a shoestring budget. Money won’t be a problem now however 
and i’m sure we’ll see it revamped shortly.
Thumbs Up or Down?
Watching tonights show just gives me another personal boost. My very own BeerChief, in my mind (obviously unbiased!), crushes every single one of these ebusinesses presented tonight. Speaking of BeerChief, not much has been done lately – i’m just too busy with college and i spend my free time learning about programming and photoshop- i’m trying to sharpen my skills all the time.
I have a week off though (first week in march) and BeerChief will get my full attention then. It’s a long, tedious battle but the site is coming together and i’m committed to it for the long haul. The main problem standing between me and BeerChief is college. College is, in effect, my full time job. Trying to look after my blog, gain new contacts through twitter and learn more about web development AND develop BeerChief at the same time with little or no cash is extremely difficult.
It will be done though.. no matter how long it takes. I’m quickly mastering photoshop which immediately saves me cash – most of the graphic work on BeerChief i can now do myself (in fact the current template was designed by myself and that was before i even started reading up on photoshop and started taking it seriously!).
Anyway, Dragons Den – Irish style, gets a thumbs up from me. At the end of the day, it’s helping to create business in Ireland and giving entrepreneurs a shot at fame and fortune. It’s a stage for anyone with ideas to announce their ideas and i’ve no doubt we’ll see a whole host of quality businesses spring up through the show. It’s a much needed glimmer of hope for many people and allows them to dream big and possibly pursue dreams – anything which enables more of that can only be good.
