No More Art Notepad

Okay so we could possibly do with destroying the last 2000 years but hey, we have to start somewhere. If you know me in any way, you’ve probably had a pint with me and been subjected to lenghty and lofty rants theories about culture change and how it’s bloody important to tear down the attitudes of old school Northern Ireland and start anew, especially with the high tech renaissance in full swing all around us.

If you’ve been listening to the majority of our politicians in the run up to the election then you know that draconian views and limited thinking is still rife in our less than moderate little part of the world and it can drag you down. I’ve said it before, it’s not easy being a young person in Northern Ireland, many of the cultures and outlooks that are ingrained in the place are at best restrictive and at worst destructive. Especially to those who are creatively minded and entreprenurial. Too often trying to get your voice heard and your ideas across feels like wading through quick-sand. If you’re not careful, your motivation and belief can get sucked down into a gabbling abyss and be lost forever.

In the past six months I’ve been going through a loop of validation, finding interested and interesting people who think our business ideas, like AirPOS, can be big noises not just in our own backyard but on the world stage. On the one hand this is a wonderful experience that makes the world seem brighter and everything seem possible. On the other hand it makes you lament the years you spent in Belfast’s wilderness giving time, energy and ideas to projects and people who either didn’t know how to, or didn’t want to, recipricate. I’ve fought my last battle with the attitudes of old. In answer to the question “Do you want to win or do you want to be right?” I’ve decided that I want to win, come what may.

And I’m learning new ways of winning. If your ideas are strong enough and your will to carry them through is equally strong then there are a thousand ways of progressing with the one constant being levels of risk. There’s an ingrained need in many for the security of the day job, the regular wage that takes the sting out of the mortgage, the child support payments, the school fees, to keep the pension pot ticking or any number of reasons. I can appreciate that attitude, but I can’t subscribe to it. If your idea is strong enough and your will to succeed equally strong I believe there will be a way to meet those commitments and also to follow the path that opened up to you when you had the eureka moment. You may fail but if you do there will be options. You and the people you love will survive, and be stronger for it.

If the alternative is mortgaging your dreams and robbing the world of your creations then that risk is mitigated surely? It’s got to be worth a try.

At the end of May VI (that means six BTW) companies from various different sets of circumstances will be building their own incubator in Belfast City Centre to start the first steps of this journey. We’re still young enough and in need of learning enough to be one of them. AirPOS will be VI of VI. The others will be announced in due course.

They’ll be sharing experiences, being mentored, seeking investment, helping each other and generally supporting each other as they seek to have grown enough in VI months to stand alone and try to take their ideas to the next levels. Surrounding them will be people who have volunteered their time and resources to help from lawyers to accountants, designers to joiners, investors to civil servants and every spectrum in between. The BBC will be documenting this process, the first of its kind in Northern Ireland.

These people, like me, have decided that they want to win and that there’s generally little value in being right.

You can boke at the sentiment if you like, and growl at the sheer lack of hipster-knowing-wink in the following statement but what you can’t do is deny the thruth behind it.

You may say that we’re dreamers, but we’re not the only ones…

Post inspired by Phil Wilson an entreprenuer, salesman and part-time comedian who, incidentally, is winning.

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