Entrepreneurialism in Northern Ireland in One Post and Thirty Three Comments

[Ewan McIntosh]

Matt Johnston, facilitator of Northern Ireland's Digital Circle, kicked off a debate that few have managed to commit to paper or screen until now: why are there relatively speaking so few independent and successful...? Is there an inherent lack of entrepreneurialism? Is entrepreneurialism frowned upon? Is it cultural? Historical? Why are there relatively so few investments from Angels or VCs?

Don't have the debate on 38minutes - go and add the 34th comment.

[Ewan McIntosh]

And the link to that post about writing good specs...

[Ewan McIntosh]

One of things I've had as a challenge is companies wanting to take on some of the risk of a project which is their baby, their company, simply by spending some unpaid time getting together a proper spec that reveals to us as potential investors who is doing what, over what time period and for what results. It does take time (I've written another one about that here) but is essential to show any investor (not just 4iP) that you're not just serious, but also a competent entrepreneur with the drive to see this product through to success.

It's not just an NI thing; I've seen it in Scotland and the North East, and know that colleagues elsewhere bump into this reluctance to 'speculate' to accumulate an investor.

Whether it's a problem needing fixed, or indeed just a huge opportunity for those of you who do have that drive to make something out of nothing, I'll leave to you to work out :-)

[Matt Johnston]

Thanks for the heads up on that Ewan :)
To be honest - that discussion created it's own storm in a teacup - in the form of a completely new NING network and soon the individuals will be meeting in Belfast.

We don't have a VC culture here. And I think the culture here reflects why there are comparatively few 4IP submissions from Northern Ireland. We've been marginalised (where's NESTA been for the last two years? And before that?) and it has an effect. Most of the people I know who would be entrepreneurial either succeeded in spite of the situation or they left. They just up and left the country.

It's sad because Northern Ireland is a lovely place, filled with smart passionate people. But it'll take a lot to fix it.