Latest / Founders and Funding / Ep 19 - Damien Mulley - Start-Up Programme Manager at UCC

Transcript

Ep 19 - Damien Mulley - Start-Up Programme Manager at UCC · Founders and Funding

• 0:01
  Hi, welcome to the Founders and Funding podcast.
• 0:03
  I'm your host, Philip Smith. On the podcast, I'll be
• 0:06
  interviewing founders, investors, startup advisors on
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  how to fund the journey of your startup and some tips and advice
• 0:13
  they have for you along the way. This podcast is sponsored by
• 0:17
  Perfect Technologies and Leighton.
• 0:19
  Enjoy the episode. Hi, Damien, welcome to the
• 0:24
  Founders and Funding podcast. Thank you, nice to be here.
• 0:28
  It's nice to have you here, Damien, to kick us off.
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  Could you tell me a bit about your company and your role?
• 0:34
  Yeah, I'm, I work for UCC Innovation.
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  So I'm startup program manager for UCC Innovation.
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  And one of the programs I work on is Ignite.
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  So we're an incubation program for recent graduates from any
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  Irish university, and we have recent graduates and also on
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  campus we have UH students who have maybe business ideas and we
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  help them to maybe turn it into reality.
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  Fantastic and Damon, just for listeners who might not be
• 1:05
  familiar, what is UCC? UCC is University College Cork,
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  so it's one of the the oldest universities in Ireland and it
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  would have maybe about 25,000 students on various programs
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  full time and part time undergraduate and postgraduate.
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  And there might be in the region about 3000 staff that supports
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  those students and we're based in Cork.
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  I've not mentioned I'm from Cork yet.
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  Now imagine I'm from Cork. That's very important when
• 1:33
  you're from Cork, it has to be it.
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  Is you have to get it in the first sentence.
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  Yeah, If I was from Cork, I'd I'd be doing that as well.
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  And and what does average day look like right now for you?
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  So for me, we every every couple of months we bring new startups
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  onto our program. So this week actually we brought
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  a couple of new starts onto the program.
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  So it was all start for them. So an average day for me would
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  be coordinating with trainers, with workshop facilitators, with
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  guest speakers and then working with our existing startups and
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  our new startups on getting their ideas into shape and turn
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  them into reality. And this week as well is a very
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  packed week because as well as you start starting the program,
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  we have our awards and showcase on Thursday.
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  So we're coordinating that we'll have a couple of 100 people
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  seeing our startups pitch and there is an award show as well
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  for best business plan and best idea.
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  So it's every day is is quite different.
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  Tuesdays and Wednesdays would be where all the workshops and
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  guest speakers come in. And then the rest of the days
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  would be again coordinating with the startups and coordinating
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  with trainers and speakers and mentors and investors.
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  Fantastic. That sounds really exciting.
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  And is there, I suppose, do you find, I was thinking here in
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  terms of the steps that have been found at the university?
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  Is it mostly from undergrad or postgrad students?
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  Is a combination of all the above?
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  So what we we get is we get students that might have just
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  graduated, they've been working an idea maybe in second and
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  third year and 4th year. Sometimes it's a project if
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  they're doing a post grad. So they could be doing, say a
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  master's and it might come from that.
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  And sometimes it's from people that might have graduated a
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  couple of years back and they, they've gone into industry.
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  But there was always something, I guess kind of nudging at them
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  in their brain. And then say over Christmas or
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  over an Easter, they go, you know what, I'm going to take
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  that leap now. I've been in the industry.
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  I've got this idea. I think now is the time to do
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  it. And so they come in to us and we
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  we have a couple of meetings and then we might recommend them
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  joining the program. And then they pitch the idea to
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  a panel of our advisors and our mentors.
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  We might invite them to come onto the program then.
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  So we see, we see sometimes the journey of an undergraduate and
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  as they graduate, then they might want to join the program.
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  Or sometimes people have heard of us through careers offices or
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  just from friends and family, and they can come onto the
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  program too. Yeah, it's just really
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  interesting. Just it really excites me that
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  university kind of start up scene and find out how it works,
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  because I've seen a lot of great serfs coming from, from
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  universities and I regret myself not having taken that
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  opportunity at the time. But it's good to hear a lot of a
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  lot of students are. And how has UCC helped startups
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  with how to fund their their journey?
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  How have they opened that part of the journey for startups?
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  So there's there's, there's a couple of things actually.
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  So 1 is we have two programs during the year for, for
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  existing students on the grads and post grads called Startup
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  Lab. And at the end of startup Lab,
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  we actually have prize money to help you with your startup idea.
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  So there's Dash. Then there's also we run a
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  student award program. So there's 10 to €15,000 in
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  prize money for, again, best idea, best start up idea.
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  So you get funding that way. We encourage people then to
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  apply for the Enterprise Ireland Student Startup Awards as well.
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  That can be another way of funding it.
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  We also encourage people to get their idea and get selling.
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  So the most important thing really for a startup is revenue.
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  I mean, an idea is great and iterating out and iterating on
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  it is great, but it's, it's getting funding to and then we
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  are supported by the local enterprise offices here in Cork.
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  And so they have various funding routes from feasibility studies
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  to priming grants to maybe expansion grants.
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  And we work with the startups and the local enterprise offices
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  to get funding that way. And then there's additional
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  funding from, say, Angel investors, and we work with
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  them. And there are then private
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  investors that come to our events, like the showcase that
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  we're having this week. And then sometimes some of the
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  people that have been on the Ignite program end up becoming
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  high potential startups with Enterprise Ireland.
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  So an example recently would be Dura Bell America.
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  Sullivan was on the date program.
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  He was a postgraduate doing a PhD.
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  The idea came from there, finished postgraduate, finished
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  a PhD, came to Ignite, worked with Ignite, got various funding
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  routes there and eventually then worked with Enterprise Ireland.
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  So there is, I guess, a lot of funding routes.
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  And also we really encourage students and startups to just
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  enter all the various startup competitions that are out there.
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  There's loads there and these can be all nice little bits of
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  money to keep you going and keep you motivated.
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  And it's also good if you don't win the prize.
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  It's a very good way of networking and you can find
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  partners, customers or potential investors there.
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  Yeah, I I really like that. I think it's great to introduce
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  uh, students and uh, founders to local offices, enterprise
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  relevant and diverse mechanisms and grants there.
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  But I think there is, there is a really kind of unique
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  opportunity, uh, for students to look at those, umm, or say those
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  kind of hackathons and those, uh, prizes and the kind of
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  those, uh, targeted, umm, grants and loans for them as well,
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  which uh, only they can avail of.
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  Uh, but I think it's, there's a lot, there's a lot of, I think
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  students and founders don't know where to start.
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  So I think UCC is really kind of sounds like they're really
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  filling that kind of gap of educate and showing them where
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  to go. We do, we actually give specific
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  kind of other seminars and modules and all the ways that
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  you can get money for your start up idea.
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  And we we have a fantastic bunch of students at the moment that
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  as you said are going to the hackathons, they're going to the
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  Hackathon Europe. They've been winning
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  competitions locally in Cork, in Ireland and in Europe as well.
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  And there's there's something I think has changed in the past
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  couple of years. I do think it's the influence of
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  maybe quarter Dojo and other programs that we're actually
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  seeing the effects of that now where students are coming in and
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  they have that start mentality even before they come to UCC.
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  And so they have a running start.
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  And so we've seen first years doing very well at the moment in
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  second years and that starts to feed into Ignite as well.
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  So there's, there's a lot of stuff happening and I think
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  there's a lot of students taking that leap and just trying stuff
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  out. And so it's, it's probably
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  easier, especially with funding from the likes of Amazon and
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  other companies as well and say Claude where you give them
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  tokens or giving hosting. So it's much easier to become a
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  startup and then just pitch and win all those prizes.
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  Yeah, I've seen, you know, companies get more involved, but
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  it is great like it seems like the founders getting younger and
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  younger and the other starting earlier and there's a much more
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  kind of a entrepreneurship driven culture I think that's
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  happening at. But you know, UCC is no small
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  part of that to to be pushing that forward.
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  And I suppose more generally, Damon, what is the best way to
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  fund a startup sharing in your opinion?
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  For me, I think it's it's bootstrapping, it's seeing all
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  the resources out there and use as much as possible.
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  Say for example, Ignite, when someone starts in the program,
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  there's a stipend is when you start off, there's a stipend
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  sale of €5000 to to help you. You've got desk space as well in
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  UCC. So you're not paying rent,
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  you're not paying electricity. You've got your, your free
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  Internet connection and UCC, Bing University has really good
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  Internet connections. So all those small little costs,
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  I guess are out of the way. And then we do encourage as
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  quickly as possible to get paying customers because that
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  validates you. It gets you used to dealing with
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  money and expenses. We, we give workshops and
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  seminars around financial projections and looking after
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  your money. And when we then put you in
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  front of VCs or investors, they can see that you're earning
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  money and you couldn't, you can actually make money.
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  And then the local enterprise offices as well, like that whole
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  idea that you can actually generate revenue.
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  I mean, sometimes people have an idea and they're working on the
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  idea and they're, they're two years into it and they're still
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  working on the idea. There's a maybe a fear of
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  actually open armed jumping in, seeing what's going to happen.
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  But once I think you start generating even a small bit of
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  revenue, like two or three paying customers, we have
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  someone on the program, they're only on the program a couple of
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  months at this stage and they've already got paying customers and
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  it's great validation for themselves and paying customers.
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  Sometimes they love startups and they advocate strongly for you.
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  So some of those paying customers get you more paying
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  customers. And once again, there's there's
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  money coming in. It becomes easier maybe for
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  investors to happily give you funding or invest in you.
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  Yeah, I really agree with that. I think and a lot of fun
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  founders kind of waited for the perfect time before they, you
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  know, they want to take on customers, they want to go to
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  market. But I think if you can get some
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  early customers and especially if those customers understand
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  that these are students or it's a young company, it's a startup
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  and you know, often with these software's, you know, the price
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  point isn't allowed either. So I think it's good to see, you
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  know, getting those initial customers was good to see
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  companies going to taking a bit of a risk or even a small risk
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  on these setups to support them. And particularly if Irish
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  companies can do that, I think it's very important.
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  I'd agree. And we, we've had guest speakers
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  in so say Becky Popova from everywhere English and she was
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  saying to our startups that use the fact that you're a startup
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  and you're just starting it in a way you, they're more forgiving,
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  they're more patient with you. And people love the underdog,
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  Irish people, Irish culture loves the underdog.
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  And they'll back you the back, the small company way more.
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  As they said, they're more forgiving than maybe a
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  professional outfit that might have boogie software.
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  If you have boogie software, they'll, they're going look,
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  you're, you're new, you're going to fix it.
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  That's OK. So huge advantages of, of being
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  a startup and getting something that's not perfect, but again,
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  done is better than perfect. Just get it out there.
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  Paying customers will, because you're paying will give you good
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  strong feedback and that helps you out as well to make a better
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  product. And they're there in a way.
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  They're advocates for you. It's fantastic.
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  Yeah, I think if more syrups can do that, I think would be a
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  great thing for them. And to look at the phone in
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  Teams Epidemic, what are the best skills you've seen from new
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  founders that's maybe helping them to be successful?
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  I actually think it's resilience.
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  It's being able to listen. Umm, this whole idea of getting
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  out of the office, getting out of the building is really
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  important. Going out and meeting people,
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  being able to be curious. Umm, what we do in Ignite is we,
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  we have alumni come in every couple of weeks and give a guest
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  talk. And what the alumni, they always
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  say is talk to more people. If they had their time again, it
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  would be get out of the office more, talk to more people and
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  just listen and being able to modify their idea.
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  I think some people go in and they, they have a strong idea to
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  have a strong idea of what the solution is and they're not
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  willing to make any changes. But if you're open to making
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  changes once you have informed data, then that's that's the
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  best quality. It's resilience as being
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  curious, open to other ideas and then making those changes.
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  And then speed is the other thing.
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  It's get it out there as I was like, I'm probably repeating
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  myself too much, but it's it's execution of an idea and getting
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  it out and then making modifications to it.
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  Oh, I think it's good. You know, I think it's important
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  to make that message clear because I think a lot of startup
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  founders, umm, they are that they're not, they're not trying
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  to, you know, as you put it, they're kind of done as better
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  than perfect. They're trying to achieve
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  perfection. The perfection doesn't exist and
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  you can end up chasing your tail for years doing that.
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  And I'm getting that, you know, get no one speaking to nobody.
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  So I think it's a very important highlight that.
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  No, we, we, we actually, we have like a performance coach who
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  actually works with say GA teams and sports teams and works with
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  our startups. And it's the idea again around
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  resilience and blockers. And a big thing is just getting
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  people to be, I guess, more, more liquid in what they're
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  doing and not just keeping the original idea and not making any
• 15:30
  changes to it. So we, we're always working with
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  our guys through that and we, we see almost like moments every
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  now and again in the problem or someone goes, yeah, look, I had
• 15:41
  this idea and I wasn't, I wasn't changing my idea.
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  I was not going to change. But from listening to other
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  people and just thinking about it more, I've now moved on to a
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  different space or I've pivoted ever so slightly.
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  And there's so much delight when people have that like just I
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  guess self reflection piece and the energy that that's created
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  as a result of that means people start moving faster and getting
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  out there again and getting paying customers.
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  Yeah, I think it's a it's a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy.
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  If you can get yourself out, dispute to customers, get the
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  feedback, umm, you know, make kind of makes you want to move
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  faster and move forward and not, uh, not start when it shows
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  perfection as well. And how can companies attract
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  investors effectively, do you think, Damien?
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  This is this is the the communications thing.
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  It's it's having less than 10 sides talking about the problem,
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  talking about the solution that you're creating and talking
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  about the market. Like what investors want to know
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  is OK, are you exciting the problem?
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  They probably all know the problem.
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  When you go to and go, yeah, yeah, there is a problem.
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  What is your solution? What is unique, your unique
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  solution and, and how are we going to go around creating that
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  solution? And then how are we going to
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  scale it? So a lot of it is investors want
• 17:05
  to know how you think, how you plan, how you execute and can
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  they back that person And you, you see it with, with pivots
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  happening that investors will stay with the company even if
• 17:17
  they change the original solution.
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  They're, they're backing people and they're backing, I guess the
• 17:25
  mentality of the people or the, the resilience that's built in,
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  in those people. So you have to be able to
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  clearly explain in a single PowerPoint slide maybe what the
• 17:39
  problem is, what your solution is going to be.
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  And then it's why you should back me in particular compared
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  to other people. And that's about how well you
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  understand the problem where you're going to go to by
• 17:52
  creating the solution. And then how are you going to
• 17:55
  make money out of it as well? I, I, again, we go back to the,
• 17:58
  the money and the funding thing. But sometimes that's where
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  people let themselves down is fantastic.
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  You're creating a solution, but where are you going to get the
• 18:08
  money? Is, is someone going to pay for
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  it? How are you going to, to get
• 18:12
  people to pay for it? And again, what the return for
• 18:16
  the investors are going to be? Yeah, I think, I think he said
• 18:19
  something interesting there as well about umm, when founders
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  are, you know, they're pitching to talk about why me or other
• 18:25
  people. I think that's actually, I think
• 18:27
  often they give a bit of ACV kind of, but they don't actually
• 18:29
  say why me or other people or why am I the person to fix this
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  problem. I think that's umm, you know,
• 18:35
  showing their resilience and showing their qualities.
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  I think is, uh, is what something investors not going to
• 18:39
  say enough? Yeah.
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  And it, it does come down to communication skills.
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  And sometimes it can be quite hard for people because they
• 18:47
  could be quite introverted and again, they just want to code,
• 18:52
  they don't want to talk to people.
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  And sometimes This is why having a Co founder that maybe has more
• 18:58
  of the communication skills. And you can, you can still be
• 19:01
  the CTO if you want to, but someone in the organization
• 19:04
  needs to it. And it's not like like a sharp
• 19:07
  salesperson or anything like that.
• 19:09
  It's just someone that can communicate things easily to
• 19:13
  investors. Again, I'll talk about, say,
• 19:15
  Marco Sullivan from Nurbel when he came in to talk to her stars
• 19:18
  recently and he talked about having different slide decks for
• 19:21
  different audiences. And so for investors, it's
• 19:25
  clearly explaining stuff that investors want to know about or
• 19:29
  say, if it's working with the likes of Enterprise Ireland, it
• 19:32
  could be a different slide deck, slightly different language.
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  So you, you have to in a way, I think they call it code
• 19:37
  switching, where you, you speak differently to different
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  audiences. And you need someone in a
• 19:43
  starter that can do that, that can talk to the tech people,
• 19:45
  maybe that can talk to investors, that can talk to
• 19:48
  people say like the people that run an incubator and you can
• 19:52
  speak their language as well. So being a, being a good
• 19:57
  communicator, I think is, is really, really important for
• 19:59
  startups. And that happens, you see, when
• 20:03
  some people don't do well, it's because they're not actually,
• 20:06
  they're doing fantastic work, but they're not able to expand
• 20:08
  it to people. And if people yes, get it, it's
• 20:11
  because probably it's a communications thing more than
• 20:13
  anything else. Yeah, it's, it's kind of a sad
• 20:16
  reality that you could fix, you know, a huge problem with a
• 20:19
  great solution. But if you can't communicate
• 20:20
  that to people, then no one's going to learn about it or want
• 20:24
  to use it. And before we finish up, Damian,
• 20:27
  if you to give one key piece of advice to share on fun in a
• 20:31
  startup, what would it be? It would be having a so there is
• 20:44
  an opportunity in every interaction you have with
• 20:49
  someone. They might be an investor, but
• 20:50
  they might know someone that's an investor.
• 20:52
  They might be someone that can buy into.
• 20:54
  SO having a pitch ready to go if it's speaking to someone in an
• 21:01
  like literally speaking to someone in an elevator, for
• 21:03
  example, or bumped into someone. Like I bumped into someone in a
• 21:06
  coffee shop recently and they were asking about the Ignite
• 21:08
  program and they were interested in maybe coming in and giving a
• 21:11
  talk. So having a pitch deck ready to
• 21:14
  e-mail. So have it in a draft in like in
• 21:17
  your e-mail account on like so you can access on your phone you
• 21:20
  can send on to people or having one or two slides ready to go.
• 21:24
  I think having that kind of material is is my main tip is
• 21:28
  once you make a connection send follow up straight away with
• 21:32
  that connection and have a slide deck or something ready to to
• 21:35
  send people. Yeah, I think that's really good
• 21:38
  advice. Umm, to finish off a lot of
• 21:40
  great advice that you gave Damien, uh, thanks so much for
• 21:43
  coming on. Uh, it was a real pleasure.
• 21:45
  And, uh, you're obviously doing fantastic work at ECC and, uh,
• 21:48
  excited to see Errol more about the startup start emerging from
• 21:51
  there. I appreciate your time.
• 21:54
  Thank you, Philip. Thanks, Damien.
• 21:58
  Hi, Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the Founders
• 22:01
  and Funding podcast. If you'd like to be a guest or
• 22:04
  have a guest suggestion, please get in touch.
• 22:06
  Thank you.