Success Stories
Rate of failure for start-up business??
In 1989 we opened Ireland’s first Business Incubation Centre in Dublin 3. We opened the second incubator in Dublin 7 in 1994. Our latest facility is in Tallaght where we share premises with Elephant Self Storage.
Over the next few months we will tell the story of some of the businesses and entrepreneurs who used our incubation services. All sorts of interesting and diverse projects have passed through our doors. We had one man who supplied turf on a horse drawn cart to his clients in inner city Dublin. He came to our facility because his turf was being stolen from the place where he normally stored it.
Another of our clients imported sun beds, or so we thought, until one day we discovered he was importing more than just sun beds. We ended up dumping the beds as he was resting in Mountjoy at the tax payers expense.
Then there was the time we had two of the most important engineering operations ever to operate in Ireland. The Luas and the Port Tunnel construction teams both started in our Dublin 7 Incubator. Neither firm was aware the other firm was using our Business Incubation Centre at the one time.
During the dot com boom in late 1990s we had numerous computer soft and hardware developers. Many were on the brink of becoming multi million pound success stories and some did get out before the bubble burst. One client, a developer of software for the computer games, worked with us for 9 months on the basis that they could have free office space and would pay back rent once they succeeded in marketing their product. After about a year they left without selling their games. However, the following year they left in a cheque in an envelope without a letter. The cheque covered all the rent they should have paid. That was one of the most satisfying clients we ever had the pleasure of working with. We hope today they are employing hundreds and making a fortune.
We have worked with security firms, banks, textile manufacturers, catering companies, printers, retailers, solicitors and barristers, government departments, shoe manufacturers, sports equipment suppliers, seaweed cosmetic manufacturers, handbag makers, a supplier of snooker equipment, a university company extracting compounds from tropical plants and so on and on.
All told we have assisted about 600 businesses in Ireland and abroad since 1989. We will tell some of their stories overtime. Remember, in the EBIC, you do not fail. You try a business idea, make use of what help we can offer, keep your costs to a minimum, and if it does not work out as planned, you put it down to experience and hopefully, start again. That is not FAILURE. Your SUCCESS story will be included in our list in time.
The EBIC man
