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case studies

Nov 21
Lauren O Reilly and Bidemi Afolabi cofounders of ProMotion rewards

ProMotion Rewards Is Creating Real Value For Both Brands And Consumers

By New Frontiers blog
ProMotion Rewards is a consumer rewards startup that connects brands and shoppers. Founded by Bidemi Afolabi and Lauren O’Reilly, the company recently raised €725,000 in pre-seed investment. For this blog, we spoke to New Frontiers alumna Lauren about the journey so far. Lauren and Bidemi met while completing degrees in pharmacy. In fact, they had an idea for a different promotion startup before having the lightbulb moment that led to developing the ProMotion Rewards app. Because of their degrees, the founders were already immersed in research and gathering data. While working for a large retail pharmacy group, Lauren saw first-hand how retailers of all types need customer insights that they can turn into concrete business results. But are loyalty cards...
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Oct 11
Darragh Lynch Uccello New Frontiers programme case study

Alumni Profiles: Tipping Point In A Search For The Dream

By New Frontiers blog
A letter from a stranger proved to be the catalyst for Kerryman Darragh Lynch, who had worked as an executive for huge conglomerates in mining, oil, and gas across the Middle East and South America for most of his adult life. Darragh had grown accustomed to the big salary, the opportunities to travel across the world, and the high-end perks that came with his job. But after 21 years, the appeal of 'stuff' was wearing thin. Darragh wanted more fulfilment in his career. As a starting point, he pursued an MBA at the University of Western Australia and started consulting. Darragh explains that the MBA would help him to “burst through my own glass ceiling. I had about 13 different projects...
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Jul 27
Conor Grimes Spoonful Botanicals New Frontiers programme alumnus

Alumni profiles: An epic journey towards the dream

By New Frontiers blog
A big dream can grow from humble roots. It was a trip to India after graduating from college that started it all for Conor Grimes and Jayne Gavin. While exploring Asia, the young couple visited spice markets and saw locals using fresh herbs and spices as a way to help inflammation. It ignited a new passion that grew into Spoonful Botanical. “They were really promoting these natural foods and natural ingredients to combat inflammation,” Conor says. He started to think of home and his grandmother who was taking medication for arthritis at the time, which was particularly tough on her stomach. “So we decided to bring back home some of the spices to see if she could get any relief...
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Jul 27
Derya Kianda TechnologiesNew Frontiers programme alumna

Alumni profiles: Breaking the code, building the dream

By New Frontiers blog
Just one in two hundred people knows how to code. That’s a lot of people around the world relying on a small pool of programmers! This knowledge gap is something Derya and Osvaldo Sousa were intent on solving when they developed their no-code application platform, Kianda Technologies, in 2017. The dream to develop their own tech startup was 16 years in the making, but back then - as a young couple studying in Portugal - it was difficult to see how they could make it a reality. “It was a bit risky for us back then. There wasn’t a lot of support. We didn’t have great examples and so it just faded away,” Derya says. They moved to Ireland in...
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Jul 26
Ivan Tuohy Great Visitor Experiences New Frontiers programme alumnus

Alumni profiles: Unlock your potential, back your dream

By New Frontiers blog
For hospitality expert Ivan Tuohy, it was a trip to Alcatraz that proved the key to unlocking the potential of a dream that had languished for years. “It really hit me that the challenges that I had in my own workplace in Ireland were actually the same challenges that many attractions and museums had all around the world,” says Ivan, founder and CEO of Great Visitor Experiences. A hotelier by trade, he was working as a general manager for one of the biggest tourist attractions in Ireland and had recently completed an MBA at the University of Limerick. It was 2018 and new innovations in technology were transforming user experiences across various sectors, but tourism operators were still relying on...
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May 01
Project One Sky Developing Wellbeing Education For Young Adults

Project One Sky: Developing Wellbeing Education For Young Adults

By New Frontiers blog
Depression and anxiety have been on the rise in children. The HSE reports that almost 1 in 4 young people may experience depression before they are 19. The disruption this causes to their lives and education is significant. Project One Sky is a New Frontiers startup that is changing how we help young people develop their social, mental, and physical health. We talked to founder Dr Colm Fallon to find out more. First things first, what’s the elevator pitch for Project One Sky? Project One Sky is a human development and wellbeing programme designed to nurture resilience and to help students cope with and flourish in the modern world. Its aim is twofold – to teach students to look after...
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Apr 25
New Frontiers 2018 One to Watch Sponsored by AIB Magda Rzepkowska WallPee

Magda Rzepkowska (WallPee) is the ‘one to watch’ in 2019

By New Frontiers blog
This year's New Frontiers national networking event (held in March) featured - for the first time ever - a pitching competition sponsored by AIB. Each New Frontiers location put forward their strongest candidate, selected by their peers, who went head to head with 11 other entrepreneurs from across the country. The overall winner of this inaugural competition was Magda Rzepkowska. We spoke to Magda about her journey so far, her startup, and her plans for the future. Madga, tell us a bit about yourself. Today, it seems like my previous career in the casino industry was from a different lifetime! It was steady and rewarding; until it wasn't. In 2016, the time had come to part ways with the company I worked...
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Jul 06
Featured startup Bruno Lanvin, Dmbook New Frontiers

Featured startup: Bruno Lanvin, Dmbook

By New Frontiers blog
Dmbook Pro is a Dublin-based company providing ICT solutions for hotels. With over 10 years in hotel management, Bruno Lanvin recognised flaws in the traditional spreadsheets, paper and email communication network used in hotels all across Europe. It was this initial observation that lead to the creation of Dmbook Pro. Bruno has worked in the hospitality industry in France, Scotland and Ireland, but he didn't initially plan on transforming hotel communication networks. But as Front of House Manager, once having identified a problem, it was in his interest to form a solution. Hotels are an old establishment, but like every business they rely on the need for effective communication between personnel, “I had this pain of trying to make sure...
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Mar 02
Eamon Crosby BriteBiz New Frontiers programme

Case study: BriteBiz – business management solution

By New Frontiers blog
BriteBiz is a Galway-based technology company that specialises in end-to-end business management software. The company's CEO, Eamon Crosby, took part in the Enterprise Ireland New Frontiers programme in Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology. Since qualifying as a Chartered Accountant with PwC 12 years ago, Eamon Crosby has been involved in founding and managing a number of different companies, mainly in the service and events industry. "I had been involved first hand in managing and scaling various companies. We constantly came up against roadblocks with the amount of administration load involved and continually sought ways to streamline processes. Although we were always using modern management tools such as Salesforce and Quickbooks, there was no efficient way to integrate them and create a streamlined,...
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Jan 26
Featured startup Aidan Duff Fifty One Bikes New Frontiers

Featured startup: Aidan Duff, Fifty One Bikes

By New Frontiers blog
Aidan started his career as top level amateur cyclist in Ireland, going on to race in France for over six years. When he returned to Ireland, he naturally started working in the cycle industry, initially in retail and then moving into distribution. The early beginnings of Fifty One, Aidan’s startup, can be traced back to a trip he took to some of the most reputable bicycle manufacturing facilities in Italy and Germany. Despite their reputations, Aidan came away somewhat underwhelmed by the standards he saw in the processes and finishing involved. Despite the lack of manufacturing facilities in Ireland, Aidan was convinced that he could do better. With his solid industry background - Aidan had already established one of the...
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Jul 14
Tim Arits New Frontiers alumnus Intouch

Featured startup: Tim Arits – Intouch

By New Frontiers blog
Tim Arits is an ex-Google, ex-chicken-breeding drummer from the Netherlands who is about to change the way we share our contact information with our networks. Tim and his co-founder, Javier Mey, joined the New Frontiers programme in 2015 to work on their contact app, Bundly. The idea was simple – when you change something like an address or phone number, why should it be up to your contacts to update your information? Why can’t you be responsible for keeping that information up to date, and allow it to sync with your entire network without them having to do anything? That was the inspiration behind Bundly. Both Tim and Javier had previous experience at  global names such as Google and Santander,...
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Jun 08

Featured startup: Evan Talty – Wild Irish Seaweed

By New Frontiers blog
Wild Irish Seaweed is a great example of an Irish company combining a heritage product with modern-day business practices. Originally founded in 2009 by Gerard and Eileen Talty, the family business has grown from strength to strength - its food and health products can be found on sale nationwide, but it also has a presence in overseas markets. All four of Gerard and Eileen’s children are involved in the business, including Evan, a New Frontiers alumnus. “We started out with two products in 2008. Back then we were just supplying to local stores. The actual idea for the business came from working with my grandfather in the summer. He had a history in seaweed harvesting, and the family would go...
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Sep 09

New tricks: my journey from administrator to entrepreneur

By New Frontiers blog
It had always been at the back of my mind to start a business. A group of us had been a lifetime in education, working in international schools. We knew what we were doing. Teaching and learning was at the centre of what we did – and now we were going to practise what we preached at school and try something new as lifelong learners. For me personally - at the end of another six year contract and after more than 30 years in international education - it was a good time to stop and use my knowledge in a different way. An industry we knew The new business we set up was to serve an industry we knew well. It wasn’t quite clear at first...
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Jul 21

Building your brand is about sharing your vision

By New Frontiers blog
Vision is a picture of the future; it’s how you imagine your startup, where it will be in the years to come and the values it will hold. Vision provides direction and acts as a constant reminder of what you have set out to achieve. If you can learn to share that vision, you’ll be able to grow support for your budding enterprise. Starting out, we wanted to convey of our vision for how people might interact differently with mobile devices. However, during this early stage of shaping the idea, the actual process can make this difficult, especially when you are being advised to protect your intellectual property (IP) and open up at the same time. Once we had lodged...
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Jul 09

Storytelling in Sligo: building a media startup in the North West

By New Frontiers blog
When my wife, Martha, and I decided to launch our digital startup, we also knew that the time had come to move away from Dublin and settle somewhere we could achieve a higher quality of life. We moved to Sligo last year and started StoryLab. This is our New Frontiers story. I’d seen an advertisement about the New Frontiers programme in the Irish Independent, the paper where I was associate editor and news and features executive for eight years. Martha and I had an idea for a media company that provided big brands with engaging, expertly-edited, readable and visual stories about their businesses, for traditional forums as well as for social and digital. I could see the whole focus in...
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May 25

Being opportunistic made me a better entrepreneur

By New Frontiers blog
A major part of success in business is being opportunistic: recognising a window of opportunity and being bold enough to go after it with both hands. I've embarked on several opportunistic endeavours in my business life. This is the story of how they came about. Be open to opportunities The first one came while I was working as a roofer at my uncle’s company, GFM Systems, which was the second largest in Ireland at the time and employed 70 people. I was 21, and looking around me during those Celtic Tiger years, I saw people build up immense amounts of wealth from property. I sought out advice from someone I was fortunate enough to know who owned over 100 properties. I asked...
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Jan 15

Past participants: Stephen Slattery / Zeto

By New Frontiers blog
Stephen Slattery was a New Frontiers participant at Cork IT (Rubicon Centre) from 2012 to 2013. His company, Zeto, offers an integrated cloud-based and hardware solution that allows retail outlets to monitor and control all their commercial refrigeration equipment from a single platform. Stephen has a degree in electronic and computer engineering from NUI Galway and had worked in London for four years, building SaaS (Software as a Service) systems for HR departments in large multinationals. He returned to Ireland in 2009 to set up his own company and had first approached the Rubicon Centre in 2010 to discuss his idea, although he had no working prototype at this stage. Stephen started Zeto with his father and co-founder, Michael. Michael...
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Dec 11

My two babies: being a parent and running a business

By New Frontiers blog
Someone in this world calls me Mummy (well not quite yet, she is only one year old). Being Rosie's Mummy is the most wonderful and most important role of my life. And the toughest. I also have a business - a new business. People refer to it as my other baby, and they’re right. Becoming a parent and starting a business are similar experiences. 1. Sleepless nights It is a given that when you become a mother, you are never going to sleep again. Never, ever. The same thing happens when you start a business. They both need your attention, your time, your patience... and, of course, you worry about them at all times. People ask me if I sleep when...
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Dec 04

Past participants: Dorothy Creaven / Element Software

By New Frontiers blog
Dorothy Creaven was a 2012 New Frontiers participant at Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology. Dorothy has a degree in Electronic Engineering and worked at Google and Abbott before co-founding Element Software, an award-winning developer of mobile engagement software. Dorothy and co-founder, James Harkin, created Element Software in 2011. The company began life as a mobile app development services provider, with clients such as Ericsson and Sage. However, Dorothy and James soon realised that a major failing in the industry lay in client engagement – lots of apps are downloaded, but very few are successful in terms of longevity of use, which means that companies are missing opportunities to build relationships with their users: We wanted to come up with a solution...
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Oct 30

Finding your feet as an entrepreneur

By New Frontiers blog
The reality of business is that you have to make money. If you’re in it for giving back to the community, helping others or world peace, then you’re just not a business person. Making money is the first thing on every entrepreneur's mind. What they do with it and where they spend it is up to the successful entrepreneur. But first, you have to generate revenue to be a successful entrepreneur. Becoming an entrepreneur looks easy from the outside. I mean, how hard can it really be? At the end of the day, surely it just comes down to: have a good idea; people will want to buy it; make money and give back to the community! Easy, right? WRONG!...
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Oct 06

Past participants: Emma-Jane Power / PR Slides

By New Frontiers blog
Emma-Jane Power was a New Frontiers participant at Waterford IT in 2012. She started a business that offers a way for brands to connect with the media by putting high-quality imagery in an easy-to-use hub for journalists. Emma-Jane joined the programme after seeing an advert in a local Waterford newspaper. Her business was already trading at the time, with a few clients on board, but she needed help to bring it to the next level. “I had completed some Enterprise Board courses, but they were fairly basic and I had heard great things about New Frontiers”. I met with Emma-Jane several months before she joined Phase 1 of New Frontiers. During our first meeting, I recognised from my own industry...
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