Sunday Independent Top Technology Entrepreneurs

4 BUSINESS
The Baltic Index
The Baltic Dry Index serves as a barometer
for world trade and the global economy by
tracking demand for the big ships that
carry dry goods — such as sofas or
televisions — around the world. Higher
demand means more trade and better
global finances. Last week the Baltic was
up 0.01 per cent to 2046
UP
0.01%
to
2046
€9.3bn
6 October 2013 Sunday Independent
Ireland's mortgage debt pile across
the country's main banks. Getting
the banks to deal
effectively with
those in arrears is a
mounting source of
concern for our
hard-working
Central Bankers
God’s Bankers Face Eternal Wrath
Pope Francis is getting seriously fed up with the carry-on at the scandal-riven
Vatican Bank. All foreign diplomatic accounts at the mini-theocracy’s powerful
financial institution are to be shut down, following concerns over big cash
transactions by some bishops and also by officials from Iran, Iraq and Indonesia.
On the Pontiff’s orders a major purge is under way, and the possibility of a shutdown
is believed to be under consideration — a sacrifice of over €80m in yearly profits.
Scandal attached to the bank goes way back. 'God's banker' Roberto Calvi was found
hanged amid claims he was involved in money laundering for the mafia in 1982.
The brightest
young things
who are putting
ideas to work
The Sunday Independent's ‘Top 30 Under 30’ list reveals the top
young Irish entrepreneurs doing the business. Compiled by Nick
Webb, John Reynolds, Dean Van Nguyen, Harry Leech & Tom Lyons
T
HEY are young.
They are successful. They are not
always rich, but
they certainly have
ideas.
Technology attracts more
hot young whizz-kids than any
other sector and it certainly
dominates this year's Top 30
Under 30 list. But we also
highlight entrepreneurs doing
well in food, biotech, helping
others, and even property
(albeit abroad).
In a panel, we have included 10 people who are just over
the age of 30 but worthy of an
honourable mention.
Jonathan Cloonan (28)
WPP/VICE Media
At the tender age of 28,
Jonathan Cloonan is already
making a splash in the city
that never sleeps and the
Belvedere old boy and Smurfit graduate was a surprise
inclusion on the Forbes 30
under 30 list last year.
Cloonan is currently working with VICE Media, the hipster bible that has turned itself
into a genuine player in the
creative media industry, and
in which his employer, the
advertising giant WPP, took a
stake last year.
Cloonan began working for
WPP at JWT London and then
had a stint working as an
account director in Group M
in Singapore before moving
to New York last year.
Chris Kennedy (28)
Trustev
Described as the “lead architect” and evil genius behind
Trustev, the company he cofounded with CEO Pat Phelan, Chris Kennedy clearly has
a sense of humour as well as a
great head for combining coding and business.
Trustev uses social data and
a number of additional
dynamic data sources to verify a potential customer’s identity, ensuring that an online
merchant can be assured they
are transacting with a real
individual. It's a complicated
sell to the non-techy but basically the company makes it
safer to buy stuff online, which
the business community clearly thinks is a good thing.
The company has won
numerous awards for its idea,
including a Best Start-Up
award from the European
Commission earlier this year.
James Whelton (21)
CoderDojo
James Whelton, 21, is bestknown for co-founding CoderDojo, an acclaimed network of
coding clubs for kids.
Started only two years ago,
not-for-profit CoderDojo is
training the next generation of
tech heads not just in towns all
over Ireland but also as far
afield as Japan, Brazil and
India.
Whelton runs his own social
media start-up Disruptive
Developments and is hackerin-residence with billion dollar American private equity
firm, Resolute Venture Capital.
Whelton's other achievements include being the first
person to hack the iPod Nano
and being named an Ashoka
Fellow for his social entrepreneurship.
Keith McCormac (23)
Glass Robot Studios
Mobile games boss Keith
McCormac co-founded Glass
Robot Studios straight out of
college with three other college pals. McCormac, who
holds a first class honours BSc
in Computer Science from
Dublin Institute of Technology, launched his first game
earlier this year called Blake
Justice: Project Hero. The
game is described as being
like “Super Mario meets Batman” where users can make
their own levels and set challenges for their friends. Glass
Robot has to date attracted a
€50,000 investment from the
Telefonica-backed Wayra
Academy to help get the company off the ground
Richard Whelan (23)
Popdeem
Social commerce business
Popdeem's founders, Richard
Whelan, Gavin Hayes, Matteo
Zambon and Conor Mongey,
are all under the age of 25.
The UCD graduates have created an online rewards app
that allows shops and banks
target individual customers
with
offers
that
are
redeemable in store. Consumers earn points by interacting with brands using Facebook and Twitter. Users who
are identified as most influential among their peers get
extra offers.
Led by Whelan, 23,
Popdeem is seen as one of Ireland's hottest start-ups as it
helps brands get to the hardto-reach cool kids.
Patrick (24) and John (22)
Collison
Stripe
Brothers Patrick and John Collison could be Ireland's greatest ever start-up kingpins.
Stripe, their online payments firm, was valued at
$500m earlier this year but
already this is looking like
being on the low side. The two
Limerick brothers are
rumoured to have recently
turned down a fortune from
PayPal for their business,
based in San Francisco.
The calibre of investors
backing Stripe gives an indication of just how hot their company
is
considered:
Andreessen Horowitz (a previous backer of Skype and
Digg); Sequoia Capital (an
investor in PayPal and Apple);
and angel investors Peter Thiel
and Elon Musk, who co-founded PayPal.
The sky is the limit for these
two down-to-earth nice guys.
Jeff Harte and
Dan Kersten (28)
Conker
Despite being one of the
hottest start-ups around,
Conker’s premise is one that
UCD graduate Jeff Harte and
THE SMARTEST PEOPLE IN THE ROOM? Above, Limerick
brothers John (top) and Patrick Collison of Stripe
DCU grad Dan Kersten sometimes have to explain slowly.
Although they are a gaming
‘middleware' company, they
don't actually make games.
Instead they make games profitable through a tool that uses
predictive behavioural analytics to allow developers who
make free games ensure that
they are selling the right products within those games to
the right customer at the right
time.
Earlier this year the start-up
won a place on Telefonica's
prestigious accelerator for tech
start-ups which is valued at
€40,000.
Cristina Luminea (28)
Thoughtbox
Cristina Luminea is the
founder and CEO of ThoughtBox, an experiential marketing
company which uses ‘gameful
learning' to teach people at
their own pace in a way which
increases the likelihood of
them retaining the knowledge.
The idea is to help children
treat maths and science like a
game and encourage them to
learn the subjects in a way
that is easier on the brain and
less likely to lead to boredom.
The company's first product
is Numerosity, an iPad app
designed to teach maths by
challenging the player with
increasingly difficult puzzles.
It's a growth area and if
Thoughtbox can crack the
market, it could be on to a
real winner.
Danielle Ryan (29)
Roads Group
Danielle Ryan's family has a
little history in entrepreneurial activity — her grandfather
was the late aviation tycoon
Tony Ryan.
The Roads Group is a diversified group which includes
publishing and luxury scents
as part of its portfolio. Roads
Publishing printed its first
titles this summer, a range of
18th- and 19th-century classic
titles with stylishly illustrated
covers by an Irish design team.
The company also launched
a range of fragrances at the
prestigious Pitti Immagine
fragrance fair in Florence last
month, and has a range of luxury body products slated for a
2014 launch.
Sophie Morris (29)
Kooky Dough
Many students come back
SLICE OF THE PIE: Sophie Morris of Kooky Dough, designer Simone Rocha and Richard Whelan and Gavin Hayes of Popdeem
from their J1 trips in the US
with a confused accent, a
hangover and a massive credit card bill. Instead Sophie
Morris came back with an idea
for a company that has landed major contracts with Tesco
UK & Ireland, among others.
The idea behind the business is deliciously simple —
make cookie dough that consumers can buy, then slice and
bake in eight minutes.
Morris couldn't understand
why the idea hadn't taken off
in Europe and it seems the
company has seen a good gap
in the market. Three years on,
the company is going strong
and is looking at expanding
outside Ireland and the UK.
Patrick Walsh (29)
Paymins
Patrick Walsh set up Paymins
(along with the former head of
technology at ezetop, Mike
Tesar) after a three-year stint
at KPMG.
He met Tesar at ezetop
where he worked as a product
manager, leading the development and deployment of a
white label mobile online topup system for Digicel.
Paymins is a platform that
allows people to accept payment from customers’ mobile
phones instead of credit cards
or PayPal. The pair are clear-
ly on to a good idea as Telefonica, former owner of the O2
brand in Ireland, has invested
in the start-up.
Ed McElroy (24)
Social Arcade
After leaving art school, Ed
McElroy worked as a game
designer at Hard Glitch Software for two years before a
spell at iPad and iPhone games
firm Redwind Software, where
he worked on redesigning
good old-fashioned noughts
& crosses.
McElroy is also a whizz at
industrial design, coming up
with some incredibly innovative products ranging from
chair design and children's
toys to barbecues and an uber
smart free running system.
The 24-year-old Dublinbased designer set up Social
Arcade which develops viral
branded games, quizzes and
puzzles for the likes of Facebook and other social media
platforms. The company was
set up in 2012 with Mariano Di
Murro and Zafer Balbous.
The idea is that the games
promote the client brand, vastly increasing consumer awareness of the product or company. Smart or what.
The brands are also able to
build up a better picture of
potential clients. The Adven-
tures of King Croc may become
desperately addictive.
Iseult Ward (22) and
Aoibheann O'Brien (28)
Foodcloud
Dubliners Iseult Ward and
Aoibheann O'Brien, both students at Trinity College, founded this web and app-based
social enterprise in a bid to
help businesses with food surpluses connect with charities
and community groups that
need it for their beneficiaries.
They were spurred into
action after learning in the
course of a university dissertation that Ireland wastes one
million tonnes of food every
year while 600,000 people
experience food poverty.
Thanks to their work over
5,000 people have been fed
with food that would have
otherwise ended up in the bin.
Targeting hotels, caterers,
supermarkets, shops and
restaurants, and with a Social
Entrepreneurs Ireland award
under their belt, they are taking part in Trinity's start-up
programme Launchbox, partnering with Tesco and seeking
funding to help scale their
venture across Dublin after a
trial in the inner city.
After studying business management under a sports scholarship at North Kentucky University in the US, Clontarf
native O'Brien is taking on
Colonel Sanders' Kentucky
Fried Chicken and its 18 outlets here with a new franchise
of the US-inspired but Britishfounded Southern Fried
Chicken take-away chain.
Southern Fried Chicken’s
first outlet, beside the Olympia
Theatre on Dame Street,
which has taken about
€200,000 to get off the
ground, employs 12 people.
O'Brien and his small group of
investors hope to open a second outlet early next year, possibly a drive-through or shopping centre outlet. Their plan
is to open at least two more in
Dublin that would see them
create at least 50 jobs, and
they have an eye on further
expansion nationwide.
Southern Fried Chicken has
over 600 outlets across 30
countries and in contrast to
some other fast-food chains, all
its food is sourced locally and
prepared on the premises.
Brendan O'Driscoll (26)
Soundwave
Stephen O'Brien (25)
Southern Fried Chicken
Inspired when he saw a
Swedish blonde walk into a
tree because she was so
engrossed in the song she was
Aodhan Cullen (30)
Statcounter
Ronan O'Brien (30)
Zatori
Age shall not wither them... OK, so they are over
Ten that are not far over 30, young
at heart and still worth watching
Padraig Mannion (30)
Superbly
According to Padraig Mannion, Superbly, is “like the
eHarmony of recruiting”.
Superbly, which he founded
last year, has an interesting
premise; saving companies
from the drudge of reading
CVs and finding candidates.
The company instead collects information from both
employers and candidates,
assesses how well matched
the person is to the role, then
displays it all in “a beautiful
and elegant dashboard”, saving the employer days of
trudging through CVs and
helping them find the best
match for their company.
It all sounds a little like
wizardry or witchcraft, but
we're assured that the process
is a result of psychometric
testing and some powerful
software.
Paddy Cosgrave (30)
F.ounders
If you've got the contacts and
chutzpah to organise an annual private gathering attended
by some of the most important
inventors of the past decade,
then you deserve to succeed,
and succeed Paddy Cosgrave
does. F.ounders, which he
started in 2010, has serious
clout and in the past has been
attended by Jack Dorsey, the
founder of Twitter; Niklas
Zennstrom, the founder of
Skype; Reed Hastings, the
founder of Netflix; and
YouTube founder Chad
Hurley.
The same year Cosgrave
launched F.ounders he also
launched the Dublin Web
Summit, which is now in its
fourth year and is already Ireland's largest business event.
He previously founded MiCandidate, a service that provided
real-time political content to
media companies in 25 European countries.
Phil Riordan (30)
BragBet
The idea for BragBet, a betting
and social networking startup, came about when Phil
Riordan and the two other
founders, Brian O'Mullane
and Jonathan O'Neill, met at
TRACK RECORDS: Left to right, Padraig Mannion, Emma Sharkey and Paddy Cosgrave
the 2010 Start-Up Weekend
in Dublin.
The platform allows groups
of friends or colleagues to
discuss sporting events together and decide which
events are worth a bet.
BragBet is developing a
software platform that manages the social networking,
suggestions, betting and
leader-board facilities and
was beta-tested during Euro
2012.
Last month the company
announced that it had become
the official betting partner of
the FAI.
Identifying the potential of
the fledgling internet at just 16
years of age, Aodhan Cullen
founded web analytics company StatCounter back in 1999.
Today, the company monitors over three million websites and tracks over 15 billion page views per month.
Buoyed by the success of
the start-up, Cullen followed it
with StatCounter Global Stats,
a free online tool that provides internet usage stats and
trends for search engines,
browsers and operating systems, including mobile.
Along the way, he has also
been awarded with the 2008
Eircom Golden Spider Internet Hero, as well as the 2007
Businessweek Young European Entrepreneur of the Year.
Serial entrepreneur Ronan
O'Brien has in a relatively
short
career
become
something of a specialist in
the often cluttered online
retail sector, focusing on
unobvious or previously
untapped corners of the clothing market.
For example, as his first
trick out of the bag, O'Brien
launched TheCostumeShop.ie
six years ago, providing wacky
attire for hen nights, Halloween parties or just those
with an enthusiasm for fancy
dress.
Buoyed by the success of
the site, O'Brien has gone on
to establish several others,
selling everything from wheelchairs and trophies to bikinis
and designer clothing.
BUSINESS 5
23.5%
Sunday Independent October 6 2013
Directors’ deals
● Aryzta’s Hugh Cooney
spent €49,900 buying
1,000 shares at a price of
€49.90 each.
● Grafton group’s Charles
Rinn splashed out
€218,000 to buy 40,000
shares at €5.45 each.
What are the odds?
Tesco's drop in
profits to €1.65bn
for the six months
up to the end of
August. It has
unveiled plans to
tackle discount
competitors like
Lidl aggressively
Consumer sentiment rose to a six year high last month — but Paddy Power’s
odds on the KBC Bank ERSI Consumer Confidence Index would suggest that
the winter months and the autumn budget will have a negative impact on
consumer confidence in the coming months.
KBC Bank/ESRI survey of Irish Consumer Sentiment,
How will Jan 2014 compare with Sep 2013?
6/4
Up
25/1
No Change
1/2
Down
clinical engineer before the
burgeoning entrepreneur
opted to strike out on his own.
Founding Allogen Biotech
in 2011 along with Derek Graydon, a former student engineer for Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council whom
Teeling met at an entrepreneurship course, the dynamic
duo have developed a product
that meets what Teeling
describes as “an unmet
demand for rapid, high sensitivity food allergen testing”.
Having secured private
investment and entering into
Enterprise Ireland Innovative
High Potential Start-up Fund,
Biotech is developing its prototype and hopes to have it
operational in the coming
months.
Mark Moore (26)
OralEye
Billing itself as “the world's
first dental check-up service
via SmartPhone”, OralEye is a
revolutionary app that allows
users to send high quality
images of their teeth and
gums to a dentist for assessment without actually visiting a dental office.
Founded by Mark Moore in
2011, OralEye has since spread
to the US, and the Dubliner
now splits his time between
Ireland and San Francisco.
Prior to establishing the
firm, Moore's first attempt to
develop an app came in 2010
with MyTipOff, a service that
offered real-time information
on the latest special offers and
cut price deals users could
avail of. However, the idea was
shelved in advance of the
development of OralEye.
FACES OF THE FUTURE: From left, Jonathan Cloonan, Georgie Smithwick, above top, Dean McKillen, Daniella Ryan, Jeff Harte, top, and Patrick Leddy
Georgie Smithwick (24)
Coursehub.ie
INGENIOUS: Scott Kennedy and Cian Brassil of CloudDock; Soundwave’s Brendan O’Driscoll
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Cristina Luminea of Thoughtbox, Southern Fried Chicken’s Stephen O’Brien, and Jennie, Sarah and Grace McGinn of Prowlster
listening to, the music discovery and sharing app that Brendan O'Driscoll and his cofounders launched in June
has been endorsed by Apple
co-founder Steve Wozniak and
English actor and uber-tweeter Stephen Fry among others.
Allowing users to see what
their friends, their favourite
bands or celebrities are listening to in real time, the data
created will also enable the
music industry to see what is
trending generally or being
played in a specific location.
Earnings will come from
commissions on songs that its
users (it currently has half a
million) purchase through its
app and hopefully fees from
music industry users who want
access to its valuable data.
Backed by Enterprise Ireland, ACT Venture Capital and
Mark Cuban (star of TV's
Entourage and owner of the
Dallas Mavericks basketball
team), Soundwave has raised
€700,000 to date and employs
nine people.
Patrick Leddy (26)
Furious Tribe
Computer science graduate
and serial entrepreneur
Patrick Leddy has counted
RTE Sport, TV3, Vodafone and
giants in banking and insurance such as Citibank and Axa
among his clients at Furious
Tribe, the phone app design
and mobile business strategy
company that he founded in
Dun Laoghaire in 2010.
With offices in Dublin, London and New York, it employs
over 30 people and achieved
all of its rapid growth by bootstrapping — without outside
investment — Leddy said last
year.
After stumbling on a software idea which he describes
as game-changing, Leddy
stepped down as CEO in
August and is working quietly on a new start-up. He
remains founder and chairman of Furious Tribe and
since January has also been
co-founder of TechForce, a
recruiter and manager of
teams of software developers
in Poland.
Jennie McGinn (29)
Prowlster
Having spent four years running the popular fashion blog
What Will I Wear Today, Jennie McGinn, along with sisters
Sarah and Grace, made the
bold move of monetising their
online content by co-founding Prowlster in September
of last year.
Billing itself as an “online
lifestyle magazine you can
shop”, the site was an immedi-
ate success, taking the Outstanding Marketing Award at
the Irish Internet Association's
bi-annual Lift Off event just
three months after its launch.
Last month, Prowlster was
acquired by Sweatshop.ie and
Le Cool Dublin, and McGinn
is currently focusing on a new
shopping platform, which she
plans to unveil at the Dublin
Web Summit later this month.
In addition, the creative
London College of Fashion
alumna has occasionally
moonlighted as a freelance
journalist, visual arts coordinator and youth worker.
Stephen Kelly (27)
Studio Powwow
Stephen Kelly amassed an
impressive body of work during stints with Dublin-based
animation companies Boulder Media and Kavaleer Productions, including serving as
an animator on the BAFTA
award-winning TV show The
Amazing World of Gumball
for Cartoon Network and the
Sesame Street iPad game,
Elmo Loves ABCs.
Channelling these experiences, last year the 27-yearold co-founded entertainment
company Studio Powwow,
where he now serves as the
firm's animation director and
lead game designer. The com-
pany has since been chosen as
a high-potential digital startup by the NDRC LaunchPad
Accelerator Program and has
received Enterprise Ireland
backing through the Competitive Start Fund.
Kelly's latest project is The
World of ShipAntics, a puzzle
adventure game for eight- to
10-year-olds.
James McNamara (28)
CleverMiles
CleverMiles was founded to
commercialise the Microsoft
Imagine Cup 2011 winning
project Hermes, an innovative
system that allows drivers to
analyse their own performance and behaviour, enabling
them to compare their performance with fellow users.
The idea was designed to
reduce road accidents and it
brought James McNamara
and the Hermes team — who
all hail from IT Sligo — an
incredible victory at what is
the world's largest student
technology competition.
McNamara served as CEO
of CleverMiles from the company's February 2012 inception to November, when he
moved to the role of chief technology officer.
Prior to his Image Cup success, he worked with window
and doors supplier Grady
Joinery, developing a business
application for the company.
site, securing €15,000 to grow
and develop the business.
Scott Kennedy (25) and
Cian Brassil (22)
CloudDock
Eamon Keane (27)
Xpreso Software Ltd
Entering the in-vogue world of
cloud computing, Scott
Kennedy and Cian Brassil are
the duo behind CloudDock, a
service that collaborates users'
various storage systems,
ensuring that they all work in
harmony.
Reflecting the company's
ingenuity, CloudDock was
recently accepted onto the
NDRC's LaunchPad 8 accelerator programme, where
Kennedy and Brassil are currently working to further
develop the business.
Both are graduates of NUI
Galway. Kennedy recently
completed an MSc in Corporate Strategy that involved a
three-month project on
reviewing the implementation of the Lean Six Sigma
managerial concept in a major
US multinational and creating
an inventive implementation
scheme.
Prior to founding CloudDock, Brassil started WestCoastSurfer.com, an online
store for surfing goods. In
2011, he scooped the NUI Galway Student Enterprise
Awards for his work on the
Described by its creators as
“like Hailo for eCommerce”,
Xpreso software allows internet shoppers to follow their
orders while in transit, providing live map-based tracking
and accurate arrival times.
Emerging from a UCD engineering research group, the
company was founded by
Eamon Keane, one-time winner of the university's the
Institute of Mechanical Engineers best student certificate.
Keane now acts as the Xpreso Software Ltd CEO and,
along with 23-year-old chief
technical officer Paulo Tubbert-Semiao, he has steered
the fledgling start-up to a spot
on the Enterprise Irelandbacked New Frontiers programme and a place in
NDRC's Launchpad incubator, Ireland's leading digital
accelerator.
Ben Teeling (28)
Allogen Biotech
After earning a degree in
Mechanical Engineering from
IT Tallaght and completing
his masters in Biomedical
Engineering at Trinity, Ben
Teeling briefly worked as a
Inspired by her own dissatisfaction with a third-level education course which she perceived to be very different than
what had been outlined,
Georgie Smithwick founded
CourseHub.ie, a website that
allows students past and present to provide prospective
attendees information on their
college experience.
Partnering with Taxback
Group CEO Terry Clune,
Smithwick has built CourseHub.ie into Ireland's largest
education assessment website
with over 15,000 reviews and
its success has projected the
24-year-old into the public
sphere. She now makes frequent guest appearances on
radio, providing opinion and
analysis on many third-level
education issues and has spoken at various high-profile
events, including the Undergraduate Academic Awards
summit and the Young Entrepreneur Bootcamp 2013.
Derek Counihan (29)
The Voucher Link
Having spent seven years
working at Kerry-based stock
photography company Stockbyte, Derek Counihan received
a lump sum when the business
was sold for $135m to Getty
Images in 2006.
Investing the money in
commercial property smartly
has provided the young entrepreneur with the cash flow
that now enables him to concentrate on Voucherlink, a
mobile phone app that allows
users to purchase drinks with
a one-click payment system.
Under the brand name Tipple.me, the app (which its creators say solves “a critical need
of global brands by making
payment and gifting easier for
consumers”) will be available
to the public later this month.
Simone Rocha (27)
Designer
Simone Rocha, the daughter
of design-great John Rocha,
has successfully carved out
her own identity since graduating in 2010 with a Fashion
MA from St Martin's College,
London.
Her collections have made
it into Dover Street Market in
London, Colette in Paris and
10 Corso Como in Milan. Her
recent collection at London
Fashion Week was well
received and Rocha recently
said she plans to move more
into shoe design.
Jonathan William
Anderson (29)
JW Anderson
Earlier this month, Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy reached a
deal with designer JW Anderson which made him creative
director for its high-end handbag brand Loewe. LVMH also
took a minority stake in JW
Anderson's label which the
Northern Irish-born designer only launched in 2008.
Known as J-Dubs to his
friends, the designer's father is
rugby legend Willie Anderson. The investment from one
of the world's biggest luxury
goods makers will allow him
expand his design labels range
as well as help push it into
new markets.
Dean McKillen (27)
Property and restaurants
In April, Dean McKillen, the
son of Belfast-born developer
Paddy McKillen, hit the headlines when he sold a mansion
he revamped to Sam Nazarian,
an Iranian hotel and nightclub tycoon, nicknamed Los
Angeles's ‘King of the Night.'
The price-tag was $39m for
the lavish home which was
once owned by Naked Gun
villain Ricardo Montalban.
Dean also owns the hip Laurel Hardware restaurant and
nightclub on Santa Monica
Boulevard and has other interests in California.
Dean's older brother Paddy
Jr, 31, is behind nightclub
Everleigh Gardens on Harcourt Street and the Bison Bar
on Wellington Quay, among
other Dublin venues.
Darren Ryan (29)
Social Entrepreneurs Ireland
‘Head of Engagement' at
Social Entrepreneurs Ireland,
Darren Ryan has helped shape
an ecosystem for charities and
social-minded start-ups. SEI
has invested €4.9m since 2004
in 161 different proposals
aimed at making Ireland a
better place including Hireland, Fighting Words and
Grow it Yourself Ireland.
A top networker, Ryan is
also a young leader in the Ireland Funds; a member of the
Sandbox Network for global
young entrepreneurs; and the
first chairperson of the Suas
Alumni Network, a network of
young professionals committed to social change. Knows
everybody in his space.
Gary Martin (25)
Martin Construction
At the age of 15, Gary Martin
was asked to run a bar and
nightclub for a relative. The
money he made allowed him
move into property and by the
age of 18, he had made his
first million.
Martin made a stack of
money in Irish property during the bubble but got out in
time. In 2009, he moved to
London and set up Martin
Construction which is developing office blocks.
His company turns over
£10m-plus per year. Martin
recently featured in the BBC's
Million Dollar Intern series
where young business people
try to turn around struggling
firms.
30 — but only just. Don’t put them out to grass
Emma Sharkey (32)
McCann Blue
DIT graduate Emma Sharkey
earned her stripes at international advertising agency
Ogilvy & Mather, copywriting
ads for clients such as the
HSE, Eircom, Xtra-vision,
Ford and a memorable zombie
TV ad for Lucozade.
Alongside creative partner
Ray Swan, Sharkey moved to
McCann Dublin in 2007 where
the duo made their name in
the creation of several successful (and often award-winning) campaigns, including
the poignant Cervical Check
Changes drive for the National Cancer Screening Agency.
Last year Sharkey and Swan
were named joint creative
directors of the firm which
became McCannBlue after the
summer merging of McCann
Dublin and BlueCube. Their
work for Dairygold recently
won an AIM Award 2013 for
Best Integrated Campaign.
Eamon Moore (32)
E-Mit
Having entered the IT sector
in 1995, Eamon Moore cut his
teeth as an IT administrator at
CSK Software; He once spent
a month heading up the IT
department of CSK Software
at just 18 years of age following the departure of several
employees.
A few months after graduating from DCU in 2003, Moore
founded E-Mit Solutions, and
the firm has since become a
recognised IT consultancy and
outsourcing business.
Having spotted a gap in the
Irish cloud services market
here, Moore founded Cloud
Compare last year with a view
to changing the way in which
businesses move on to the
cloud. He’s currently managing director of both companies
and in his spare time is a cloud
adviser for Dublin Chamber of
Commerce members and a
speaker for organisations such
as the Irish Centre for Cloud
Computing in DCU.
Brian Fallon (31)
Distilled Media
Having founded property website Daft.ie at the tender age of
15 with brother Eamonn,
Brian Fallon now sits on top of
Distilled Media, a succesful
online publisher.
With a stable that includes
various other propertyfocused sites, as well as the
influential Boards.ie and
online news outlet TheJour-
PROVEN POTENTIAL: From left, Phil Riordan, Brian Fallon and Aodhan Cullen
nal.ie, the company claims to
rake in 3.65 million unique
users per month.
A member of the Trinity
alumni, Fallon has since
returned to the campus, enjoy-
ing a stint as a part-time lecturer between 2006 and 2008.
Gene Murphy (33)
Redeem & Get
Following the completion of
a degree in business and
marketing at Portobello College, Gene Murphy began his
career in the publishing and
event industries before turning his attention online.
The move paid off after the
33-year-old co-founded voucher redemption and scheduling site Redeem & Get, offering services for businesses that
participate in daily deals
online.
In 2011, Redeem & Get was
awarded the ESB Electric
Ireland Spark of Genius
Award at the Dublin Web
Summit, winning a business
support package worth
€40,000 and an investment
of €100,000.
Murphy is a graduate of the
Enterprise Ireland iGAP4
course and has also been a
mentor at Startupbootcamp,
Dublin.
Trevor Parsons (33)
Logentries
After completing his PhD in
University College Dublin,
Trevor Parsons led a number
of joint research projects in
conjunction with the thirdlevel institute and IBM's
Dublin Software Lab, founding Logentries with Dr Viliam
Holub in 2010.
Logentries offers cloudbased services for collecting
and analysing huge amounts
of machine-generated log data
on everything from software
applications to mobile phones.
Last year, high-profile
American firm Polaris Ventures led a $1m investment
round in Logentries, leading
to the establishment of an
office across the water in
Boston.
In addition, the company
has received support from
Launchpad, UCD's Nova Innovation Centre and Enterprise
Ireland.