No More Art Notepad

So they’re all trying to gain our trust again it seems these politicians and they’re sorry indeed about the expenses stuff and all that bad stuff they were caught doing. We should forgive them and let them fix up the country they say. We owe it to ourselves.

Now it’s unfair to tag them all with the same brush but the adject tedium of the Facebook posts and Twitter stream with the electioneering is overwhelming to the point where they are now best referred to as anti-social networks. But like the proverbial wobbly tooth I haven’t got the willpower to unfriend them all, on some horribly corrupt level I must be enjoying it.

Saying that it’s not all bad. In the interests of disclosure yes we built her website and yes my fiance works for her but it’s still refreshing to see Anna Lo pledging her help to SME ands, wait for it, Start Ups on her election literature. Check it out for yourself…

Fake? Not really. Remembered through a haze of Bushmills more like. Back home friends of ours have a name for the second day of drinking, the ill-advised watching the game down at the pub after a heavy stag night, wedding or birthday. They call if Day 2, and it should send shivers down the hardiest of spines. And it appears that Day 2 has an international faction.

If you haven’t been you should go immediately. There’s a reason why all of the songs about San Francisco are about how leaving it breaks your heart. It’s entirely true. Granted it’s got an extraordinary homelessness problem that beggars belief, also there’s parts of the neighbourhood that you’d be advised not to venture into but despite these things it has an atmosphere that is unlike anything we’d ever experienced. There’s a buzz in the air, a belief in something, what? A way of life? An attitude? It’s hard to put your finger on it but it’s there in the electric between people. It’s there when you walk down a half empty street.

Our first St Patrick’s Day (16th of March) was spent much like the actual St Patrick’s Day, in an Irish pub, drinking Irish drinks and generally living up to every single Irish cliche imaginable (minus the fighting) and it was a blast. We even got up and played some songs in the end, which confirms beyond a shadow of a doubt that we’d found our way through the road of excess and took a wrong turn at the palace of wisdom too.

Did I mention that we almost missed our flight to San Francisco? Literally we got to gate at a sprint with the last of the Austin tequila sweating its way out of our stressed and bent up bodies. But we made it, and you had the feeling that on this trip you were always going to make it. The fates couldn’t possibly be so cruel.

When we finally touched down at SFO we had to make it to San Jose and so we hopped on a Super Shuttle and tried stretching the latest flights out of our systems as we got ready for a fairly hectic schedule. Naturally the first guy that we struck up a conversation with just had to be a retired venture capitalist who was only too happy to fill us in on the venture capital glory years (a license to print money) and how things were now radically different in the Valley (Silicon Valley). And of course Chris Noble gave us his card and told us to keep in touch with any developments back home in Ireland. Will do Chris.

As an introduction to the attitude of San Francisco and the way people go about their lives Chris was perfect, a human intro passage, an organic tourist brochure. He was open, interested, a bit wild eyed and above all grinning from ear to ear. He liked what we were trying to do with the AirPOS product and loved that we’d come to San Francisco to meet up with our investor. As validation went that we were in the right place, it couldn’t have come any more graphic than our first chinwag.

From here we suited up in a hotel bathroom (yes that’s SUITED up) and made our way to the Enterprise Ireland networking lunch and company exhibition. Here around 30 Irish companies were showing their wares while the Taoiseach Brian Cowen and prominent members of the ITLG and Californian business community mingled and chatted.

Here was only the first instance of talking about the ‘can do’ attitude that permeates the place but it most certainly wouldn’t be the last. While talks and speeches in Belfast are typically full of book learned business jargon and politicians answers dressed up as actualities in California they’re talking about a philosophy and a culture that they have nurtured, fed and matured into a State wide identity. The more cynical among us might scoff at this very American ‘can do’ take on things but don’t ever be in any doubt that in California they’re not just talking about it, they live it, every moment. It’s in their marrow and is the driving force behind everything that they do.

We were as wide eyed and excited as every person from Dublin, Wexford, Limerick and every corner of Ireland and like them, we were slowly but happily being inducted into the cult of JFDI (you work it out.)

John Hartnett and Arnie at the ITLG Awards, Stanford

From here we made our way to the luxurious halls of Stanford for the ITLG Awards, an annual event showcasing and rewarding the best of breed tech companies from Ireland. And there is was again, the Can Do. The anecdotes from Irish entreprenuers who have anted up and tried to live their dreams out. Of course there are those who will have had their hearts ripped out, but there were none in this room.

Instead we were treated to a roll call of diverse success stories and weighty tales of start up rollercoasters. It might be indicitive of something that the word Belfast was uttered 23 times from the stage, much more than any other part of Ireland (yes, we did count like silly little patriots!) and not least by the keynote speaker, none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger himself who treated us to stories about his bodybuilding days and training at the Belfast docks in the early 70s when even the hardiest of souls gave the city a wide berth. He gave awards to SiSaf from Belfast and Redmere from Dublin, congratulations to them both as shining examples of what’s possible in Ireland and also as proof positive that world class companies can be born and grow on these shores.

Kieran at the ITLG Awards, Stanford

The history of Stanford itself is a story of risk taking and outlandish thinking and its little surprise that this then became the birthing stone of such luminaries as Cisco Systems, Google, Hewlett-Packard and Yahoo! What a privilege to be standing in the corridors of the giants, trying to take our own baby steps forward. Let’s start the trend of thanking one David Kirk for his commitment to us and generosity of spirit right here, with the memory of Stanford bright in our minds…

Marty Neill and David Kirk at the ITLG Awards, Stanford

We’ve made a further appearance in the Belfast Telegraph this week and on their website talking about what makes a good website from both the designer’s and the client’s perspective. If you fancy a read have a look here http://tinyurl.com/beletele

In my time I’ve come across a few things with the title incubator. There was the SEBI (Synergy E Business Incubator) which was most certainly an incubator of sorts, and worked quite well for a few years before inexplicably falling off the face of the earth (maybe someone else out there knows why?) But it wasn’t really an incubator in my mind. I’ll go on to explain why later.

Then there was a whole section for incubation written into the original plan for the Oh Yeah Music Centre which for me, as a founding member, was probably the most exciting part of a number of hugely ambitious and maybe unreachable goals. There was even a pilot scheme in the guise of Scratch My Business that brought a few music entrepreneurs together and created a shared workspace for them with access to wifi, a desk and a shared pool of knowledge. Again not an incubator as such, more a Co Working idea. Hopefully we’ll see that part of Oh Yeah’s plan come to fruition in future times, spinning out music businesses and helping them to get a foot on the ladder instead of being mere hobbies or side projects. There will be immense value in that and people in music need it probably more than most.

And that’s as close as I’ve come. Which says to me that in reality, Belfast does not have an incubator in the true sense of the word. I’m happy to be corrected. For me an incubator should be a hot house, an environment that promotes the idea of taking your business by the scruff of the neck and pushing it hard in a concerted effort to grow. An incubator should be focussed on taking businesses with true world potential in and helping them to progress towards the possibilities that the founders created when they anted up and took the plunge into the uncertain, scary and exciting world of entrepreneurship.

It should be a home for the crazy ones, the risk takers, the ones who believe it is better to burn out than fade away. It should not be a place where people come to avoid failure, it should not continue to support businesses that cannot fulfil their potential. It is not a place for those who aren’t looking beyond these shores. It should not be a half way house for grant seekers and businesses whose culture is aimed towards syphoning from the public purse.

We’ve all talked enough about putting Northern Ireland on the world stage and the peace dividend. While our politicians are focused on inter-tribal point scoring we must be looking to ourselves, our peers and those who have succeeded for leadership and drive. We’re in this together after all.

And so to VI (pronounced six and meaning Virtual Incubator). VI is an empty room. It needs painted, stud walls, electric points, heating and people to help do all of those things. It needs energy and creativity, ideas and heart. It will need money but for now it has enough to get by. It needs a good internet connection to give it tentacles to the world. It needs five businesses willing to take a risk at being all they can be. Why five? Because AirPOS, my spin out, is VI (1) and I’ll be on this journey with everyone else. And I’m very very excited about that.

VI needs mentors and investors, those with the war wounds and nuggets of wisdom that are more valuable than 100,000 start a business programmes.

VI has no business plan nor a strategy. It has no board of directors. It has no logo. We’re incubating the incubator too, if that’s not too surreal, and its success will be tied into those within its walls.

Take the first step at www.startVI.com