Silicon Valley has a small handful of awesome-yet-secretive startups. Probably the most well known is Palantir, who do a lot of very cool big data stuff with all sorts of interesting companies. However, it’s rare you hear about a startup in Europe talked about in the same behind-the-scenes tones. Meet Potato, they’re the Palantir of marketing. I should know-I’ve just become their Chairman. [click to continue…]
At some point I’ll have enough time to write about how we accidentally launched Box of Awesome the weekend I got married. And how twenty thousand kids jumped on the concept in about three days. But in the meantime I thought it might be useful just to talk about what it actually is. [click to continue…]
I’m getting asked a *lot* about this topic lately. With the merchandising success of Rovio (Angry Birds), Mind Candy (Moshi Monsters) and Activision (Skylanders) it’s become clear that games can become genuine entertainment brands. Rovio and Mind Candy are each generating $100M+ through combined digital/physical sales and Activision recently announced they’d passed the $500M mark with Skylanders merchandising. [click to continue…]
Last week I was the moderator of a panel about Cyberbullying in Cork. Organised by Sean Kelly (MEP) and featuring a range of experts including Patricia Cartes (Facebook), Aisling Parkes (UCC), Avril Ronan (Trend Micro), Padraig Cotter (NUI Maynooth), Anthony Whelan (European Commission) and Sean Fallon (AntiBullyingCampaign), it was one of the most interesting events I’ve been to in a very long time. [click to continue…]
I’ve known Shane Ross since I was in Trinity College (in fact I’m pretty sure I voted for him as senator). He’s a very smart guy who certainly knows what it takes to start a business. But he’s missing an important point in his takedown of Enterprise Ireland. [click to continue…]
With a spare thirty seconds in my week I’m experimenting with some visual commentary (interpreted by the ever-patient Neil). All feedback welcome 🙂
After giving it some thought I’m calling it: 2013 is going to be huge. We’re going to see some big moves and more inflection points than an engineering class playing Twister. Here’s my list. [click to continue…]
There have been over 300 new startups launched in Dublin over the last year. It’s a great stat and one which genuinely underpins our ‘startup country’ marketing. I think there’s a growing realisation that our entire growth strategy is essentially predicated on starting new companies. Unfortunately I don’t think people have also grasped that failure is an essential part of this same strategy. [click to continue…]
This is a difficult post for me to write. I think starting a company is one of the most valuable things that anyone can do. I’ve started a few and helped some other people do the same. But the suggestion by the Irish Times that older people should consider angel investing as a retirement activity is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read. [click to continue…]
I was at F.ounders for about ten seconds last week (I know, I know) and met only a fraction of the awesome people I should have. However I did get to have coffee with the mother of a young developer who’s just entered secondary school (high school). [click to continue…]