We are delighted to announce that due to the incredible generosity of our donors the Outvesting fund for this round stands at €5,806.75.
We discussed having more than one prize, but we decided the best thing to do is to stick true to our first principals, and target a single startup.
Therefore, we are proud to announce that Kildare Street have won €5,806.75 in this round of Outvesting.
]]>The second place finisher was Greenhouse Limerick and third was memberGRIP. But congratulations to all the applicants, each of whom is investing time and energy into getting a business off the ground and eventually generating employment and wealth at a time when they were never more needed. You have shown that entrepreneurship in this country is alive and well.
Press release to follow shortly…
]]>The idea for the Greenhouse incubator was sprouted during a Limerick Open Coffee Club meeting in January. The incubator aims to be a “one stop shop” for early stage start-ups. Selected start-ups will be given a experienced mentor, guidance & assistance in developing their product/business. The Greenhouse will also look after all other aspects of starting a business; company registration, Intellectual property, Trademarks, fiscal & legal issues etc. We will make sure that all i’s are dotted and all t’s are crossed.
During the 6 month incubation cycle start-ups will have access to a substantial network of knowledge & experience, professional advisors etc.
Towards the end of the cycle we will also assist them in developing or expanding their core team and will make introduction with investors or other bodies that will be aid to making their venture a success.
All this is provided at no cash cost to the start-up, instead the incubator takes a small equity stake in the start-up (2-8%). This equity stake also ensures our continuing interest in making the venture a success.
The Greenhouse is a venture whose success will benefit a whole range of other ventures and not just the founders. So far we have built a network of mentors & professionals, secured a office building and arranged support agreement with a wide range of professionals. The Greenhouse has also organised several Business Camp type events providing support and information to start-ups. All were free of charge.
We also have planned Business Camps in Dublin, Galway, Cork & Belfast followed by a start-up Bootcamp. So far we only have received some sponsorship for the event but have not received any other funding. Everything so far has been accomplished by continuing unpaid volunteer work.
The money will be used to fit out our offices in Limerick so that we can provide actual facilities for start-ups as well as co-working facilities. Some of it might also go toward the costs of running the various Business Camps and Bootcamps.
]]>I am a software developer by trade and have good experience in web development and software engineering.
An opportunity presented itself about a year ago which lead to the creation of MyChildcare.ie When we were looking for childcare for our little girl for 3 days per week we were unable to find an online resource with decent photos and descriptions of crèches in our area. We were also a bit confused by all the terms like “sessional”, “part time”, “minder ratios” and the other terms that go with the childcare industry. Given this lack of a good resource for Ireland MyChildcare.ie was conceived one year ago. The website went live 9 months ago and is becoming very popular. We manage everything ourselves; the website creation, the online marketing, the Google advertising campaign, the sales calls and accounts and the networks and computing. Only last week we reached visitor number 24,000, which is something we never imagined within our first year. We are getting 4,000 unique visitors a month now.
One popular feature of the site is the Parent Coach section. Marian Byrne is the parent coach on programmes on TV such as “How Long Will You Live?” as well as having regular features on National Radio like Newstalk. We were so impressed with Marian that we approached her to have a regular slot on the MyChildcare.ie Parent Information section and she took our offer.
The “Parent Zone” is another section of the site that has grown from strength to strength and is now a very visited area of MyChildcare.ie.
We are extremely excited about the possibility of getting awarded this funding. After the last 12 months we surely feel we know whatâs involved in making an online business work (as well as keeping 2 children happy!) but we also know what’s needed to bring it to the next level.
We really could make this money work. The main reason I say this is that we were recently approached by MyHome.ie to become an anchor tennant on their site to provide childcare listings on all property broschure pages of their site as well as to run a dedicated parent area on their site. MyHome get over half a million visit per month, and we would be featured on 70,000 property pages of their site. The cost of this exposure to us would be 1,000 a month (this is a much smaller amount if one was to but the same exposure on MyHome.ie, the fact the we are providing them the service makes the price lower). The cost at the moment is too restrictive as we have other advertising medium to fund (mainly Google Adwords).
We work hard, and often long hours. We develop and promote the entire operation inhouse. We are trying to hard to get the name MYCHILDCARE.IE out there. We have deals with sponsors of prizes for draws to keep the site interesting for parents and business owners alike and we find this is a great way of getting people taking about the brand MyChildcare.ie
We try to keep very current. We brodcast all updates on the main social networking sites linked from each page my MyChildcare.ie.
We are commited and we know our business. We have developed every aspect of it inhouse.
In a word “Exposure”!. I outlined in the “Why do you deserve to win” section our recent approach from MyHome.ie. Such a large site being attracted by us proves that there is a massive market for our website. There has been a large increase in visitor numbers week and week as we get more popular, but we want more.
Since our development costs (monetary) are practically zero (as all development, content, graphics and layout are done by me in house) we would plan to invest in some advertising like the MyHome.ie venture. This would give us massive exposure and get more creche owners to see MyChildcare.ie as the one-stop-shop for advertising a childcare business.
We would love to have a stand at the Early Years Education show where childcare business owners come to visit the latest and greatest innovations for their sector.
We would also love to invest more in facebook advertising; this is a really new and effective way of reaching a profiled target audience. We have some facebook adverts running, but the cost of advertising is often a tough hill to climb.
What will we do with the money? We would aim to become the most recognisable childcare finder and parent information portal in Ireland.
Thanks so much for your time in reading about our work and our pride in it.
]]>www.prebait.com, a Dublin-based online venture, is using the social networking technology popularised by websites such as Bebo and Facebook to allow anglers to get together online and share information.
The free website connects anglers who fish the same coarse fishing venues. At present, Prebait.com boasts more than 2500 different fishing venues with new venues added daily by joining members.
In its year of existance it has aquired over 6500 registered members 20k unique vistors a month. We been shortlisted for two golden spiderweb awards. We also sponsered Ireland in the World Fishing Championships in Holland this year.
With the success of the concept we have redeveloped the whole site and added a retail store. This redevelopment allows us to clone the concept to fit to any niche community. This is where ESS was born a collection of niche social networks.
Latest verisons still in development: http://dev.prebait.com/home.php http://prebait.4tackle.com/
We have spent every waking hours on this site over the past 2 years and know we are on to a good thing winning this would give us the encouragemnt and money to drive us forward over the last few hurdles. We are an Irish business creating free resources for worldwide communities.
We have created this whole site personally funded and built in house.
The money would go towards the final development of the prebait and begin the next ESS site. This would be spent on some specialist development and website promotion.
]]>Hurling and the GAA has always been a personal passion. I launched my business MARC Sports with the MARC Sliotar, an official GAA approved sliotar at the end of 2005.
In light of modern day economic pressures, I wanted to be able to design and source quality sliotars at a competitive price for my customers. I was working as a computer programmer at the time, but within 18 months, the growth of this part-time enterprise required my full-time attention.
In early 2008, following an extensive period of rigorous testing, MARC Sports successfully obtained the coveted IS355 Safety Standard for our MARC hurling helmet, and subsequently the helmet was officially endorsed by the GAA. The MARC Hurling helmet became only the second brand of helmet in the country to receive such an accreditation.
Significantly, this development offered choice for the first time, to Provincial Councils, County Boards and Cuman na mBunscoileanna when purchasing hurling helmets.
The MARC helmet incorporates features that enhance visibility, comfort and style based on both inter-county player feedback and my own personal technical expertise.
With the introduction of compulsory protective headgear for all levels of hurling from January 2010, and the increasing popularity of the sport both nationally and internationally, the market for hurling helmets is set to expand significantly.
It is imperative that the consumer can be offered a product that conforms to exceptional safety criteria, provides quality and choice at a competitive price. We at MARC Sports are proud to be able to deliver on all counts.
As a committed player, supporter and member of my own local club, I hope that my business venture will complement the vision of those who wish to ensure the longevity of the game. Through www.MarcSports.ie I aim to merge new technology with our ancient, national game, and thereby help revive its appeal nationally, as well as introducing it to a growing global audience.
I am dedicated to offering the consumer choice, value & quality. MARC Sports is currently a small player in the industry. We have worked very hard and diligently to design & produce high quality products. This funding would go a long way to publicising the products and building MARC Sports brand awareness.
We are currently planning to launch a large-scale initiative prior to Christmas. This is in conjuction with a very well known Childrens Charity, to which we have committed to donating a percentage of our profits annually.
€5000 would allow MARC Sports to advertise and promote the launch and in doing so also give back to a well deserving organization that makes a real difference to children’s lives.
]]>All Outvestors receive 50 points each (equating to the €50 they each outvested), such that a maximum of 5000 points (50 x 100) is available. They allocte their points to the applicant companies as they choose — all 50 to one company, or 10 to each of five, or one to each to 50, or however. If a company receives more than 2500 points, it is automatically the winner and receives the €5000. If two or more companies each receive more than 1000 points (only four companies could receive more than 1000 points), there’s a second round of voting between these companies. Otherwise the top 10 companies go to a second round.
Votes are to being submitted via Twitter and you can follow progress here.
]]>Nootrol applies social networking technologies to carbon accounting principles. The result is a real-time model of carbon supply chains without the costs or administration headaches associated with supply chain carbon accounting.
We developed the concept in response to feedback from 280 organisations actively managing their carbon inventories.
The Nootrol service:
Our USP’s are:
Where are we now?
The product is scheduled to launch on December 7th at the “Scope 3 Carbon Accounting Conference” in London. This coincides with the United Nations Climate Change negotiations taking place in Copenhagen and should further enhance our opportunity to position Nootrol in the public eye.
We are currently trying to secure funding to enable this launch to occur.
We deserve to win for the following reasons:
Launch the Nootrol platform on 7th & 8th December in London at the Scope 3 Carbon Accounting Conference.
The costs are:
KildareStreet.com is a non-partisan website which makes it not only easy for people to keep tabs on their elected representatives in the Houses of the Oireachtas, but actually possible for them to do this – quickly, clearly, and electronically – for the first time ever in the history of the Republic.
Since launching in April, we’ve helped nearly 55,000 people in 77 Irish citites to read and search through the workings of the Dáil and Seanad. The site currently receives more traffic than the official Orieachtas site, serving approximately 1 in every 25 Irish voters. It also sends over 350 email alerts on most sitting days and more than 1,200 people are following TDs, Senators or search queries via email alerting.
All of this is cheerfully provided to the public at no cost and ad-free, and to date, Kildare Street has been built entirely from volunteer efforts. In order to continue to provide services and add new features, we need income. But we are not asking you to donate Outvesting funds; instead, we’re asking you to invest them in new civic services and in a viable commercial revenue stream to generate future income for the site.
KildareStreet is based on the UK website TheyWorkForYou.com, whose open source code allows for third-country projects like ours. Unfortunately, while the back-end tools are first-class, the web interface is so tightly coupled to Westminster that porting the app to Ireland was a huge and Byzantine task. The barriers to adoption of additional modules are large as the project now stands.
Investment from Outvesting would mean a new platform for the site, new services for the public, and new revenue streams for the organisation – all of which will significantly help to secure the growth and future of Kildare Street.
Our goal is to make Government accessible, accessible and transparent to voters and constituents in Ireland. Sites like ours are not produced by any arm of the Government itself, and none of these facilities existed before we started to build them. In Ireland there isn’t even anywhere you can go online right now and discover who your own TDs an Councillors *are* without requiring you to have detailed knowledge of the electoral system, let alone sites which put local communities directly in touch with the people who are supposed to be working on their behalf.
Opening up the processes of democracy to ordinary people is our contribution to the civic areana. It might be a sad fact that this should be innovative, but it is a fact nonetheless. Kildare Street provides a service that is fundamental to a free and open democracy, and is the only such service in Ireland.
In October, we were honoured to win the 2009 Irish Web Awards award for Best New Web Application or Service. We’d like to continue to improve what we can offer with your help. And, in terms of bang for your buck, we think Kildare Street is a great investment. We’ve achieved a huge amount with absolutely no funding at all; with €5,000 we can deliver significant new services very quickly and bring on board a commercial revenue stream that will continue to fund the site into the future.
We want to port KildareStreet.com to a new, future-facing framework so we can add new tools to the site, make it much better looking and more user-friendly, and make that happen much more quickly. Part of your €5,000 will buy new civic services like expenses for TDs and the ability to use your address to find out who your representatives are and contact them online. (We’ll even track responses and produce scorecards for TDs, showing who is responding to constituent questions and who isn’t.)
We are painfully aware of the urgent need to develop revenue streams for Kildare Street to secure its financial future. Accordingly, we need investment to fund two commercial projects that will generate significant revenue for the site.
First, we’re looking to create an extremely dull but high-value service for solicitors and barristers allowing them to compare changes in legal statutes that have been amended through new legislation. Essentially we can tap data we already have and present it in a way that solves a significant marketplace problem.
Secondly, we are planning to create and sell a print directory of politicians using a slightly expanded data set. While not particularly sexy, the information we would be able to provide in our directory would form a canonical reference volume and be of interest to anyone with an interest in politics and public affairs, including lobbyists, PR companies, journalists, Ireland’s 359 public libraries, and law libraries.
Without investment, none of this will be possible – but with Outvestment, we can make a lot happen with your money. Thanks for your time!
]]>The idea came up back in June 2008 from the founder Stan Kuznetsov, but was left in market research form until Stan was made redundant in February 2009. Stan has joined Midlands and West Enterprise Programme at a Castlebar Innovation in Business Centre in April 2009 and gave this project its full time commitment. Two months later, in June, I Steve Daley has joined the company and this is were the fun began.
So far we were doing an extensive secondary and primary research in order to come up with the win-win business concept and a business plan for national and international business. And we also managed to provide successful alpha testing of our service across all Irish mobile networks and with couple of reference customers.
[more info can be provided upon request]
Why do we deserve to win? Hmm. It’s simple. We have a revolutionary solution for almost every business to allow them to engage and interact with their customers. In fact, it is totally new way of providing mobile services for businesses. One of the most important thing that it is absolutely free to the end user to use the service from home or abroad.
Both, myself and Steve are business men from head to toe, and are able to develop a global business. I have a degrees in economics and business, and Steve has a degree in economic and also been involved in two startups previously.
The Company aims to provide a mobile communications channel for any business to connect with customers globally irrespective of country, network or handset.
MiTAG is a bespoke VAS provider who aims to create mobile solutions for enhanced global marketing and automated customer services that will offer:
[more info can be provided upon request]
We aim to develop a WEB2.0 site that will allow SMEs, advertisers, and marketing companies to easily create & deploy international/national self-service portals on MiTAG’s mobile SDP (service delivery platform).
The website will be available to any business worldwide to benefit from using our mobile phone channel, and to allow its consumers whenever they are to engage with them free of charge.
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