#irishstartuptv

[mymanley]

Hey @debbiemdesigns have you met @jennyhuston & @emmamanley before? They set up @blossintl in @DundrumTC...

— IrishStartUpTV (@IrishStartUpTV) December 10, 2018

[mymanley]

Meet @emmamanley an Irish fashion designer, who along with fellow designer @jennyhuston (@EdgeOnly) & @PH_accountants have created @blossintl; a new fashion retail brand currently curating 42 Irish designers in their pop-up @DundrumTC 📺 Watch full video👉https://t.co/KOoAsYYQgZ pic.twitter.com/EDLvsJDEd8

— IrishStartUpTV (@IrishStartUpTV) December 10, 2018

[richarddonelan]

FoodCloud is on a mission to eradicate food waste!

Christmas is well and truly over yet this evening, in Ireland, it started to snow. It’s now very cold outside and the snow is beginning to stick on the ground — a very rare occurrence in Dublin City! Thankfully the startup community of Dublin (well 110 of us anyway) were able to take shelter at Google EMEA HQ, in Dublin’s Docklands, to listen to a most inspiring interview with FoodCloud founder, Iseult Ward. Our host and interviewer for the evening was David Scanlon, Chapter Director of Startup Grind Dublin (Startup Grind is a globally run series of fireside chats with entrepreneurs).

FoodCloud is a social enterprise that works with partner retailers and charities to redistribute food, that would otherwise go to landfill, to instead go to those who may otherwise find it difficult to keep themselves fed. Typical examples of such food might include misshapen vegetables or other products that are slightly out of date but are still perfectly good to eat.

FoodCloud was founded by Iseult and her co-founder, Aoibheann O’Brien, in 2012. Inspired by the ‘food movement’ happening in the UK at that time. This movement was tackling a crazy situation whereby every year a huge volume of perfectly good food was being thrown out when so many people were concurrently struggling to feed themselves. Both founders thought it amazing that nothing was happening in Ireland in the area of food waste reduction at that time.

I’d first met Iseult in June 2015 and it was amazing to hear, this evening, how FoodCloud has grown to the point of now working with every Tesco in the UK to reduce food waste in that region. The growth in their scale has also been followed by the growth of their team which now stands at 46 strong. Iseult’s full interview with David Scanlon, this evening, can be viewed on the Startup Grind YouTube Channel. I’d definitely recommend you guys having a watch or a listen to that!

What inspires me most about the FoodCloud story to date is the focus of it’s founders on their goal of eliminating food waste. Like all businesses they have faced their fair share of challenges but it’s the way that they’ve remained so focussed on their mission that most struck a chord with me. It’s also amazing to think that they have built this business from scratch and that Iseult had only just graduated University when they decided to start up.

It’s also really exciting to think that they’ve managed to grow their business without having engineering backgrounds — clearly a massive testament to their leadership skills and ability to learn on the move.

It really was so great getting Iseult’s updates on their journey over the past two years and I can’t wait for the next 2 year update. I have every confidence that FoodCloud are going to continue to go from strength to strength and I wish them the absolute very best as they continue on their mission to rid the world of food waste!

If this ‘food movement’ idea is a subject that interests you then you may also enjoy reading ‘The Moneyless Man — A year of freeconomic living’ by Mark Boyle. Mark spent a year living ‘off grid’ in Bristol, UK, and wrote a book about his experiences. I must actually remember to ask Iseult if she knows the author as he also happens to be an Irishman and BESS, TCD, graduate…

What are your thougths on food waste? Would you eat a mishapen carrot, brown banana or slightly out of date yoghourt? Leaving food poverty aside shoudl we not all be doing more to reduce the amount of perfectly good food that seems to be ending up in landfill? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

[richarddonelan]

TV or YouTube? How to leverage technology to launch your media career from scratch.

I started making video interviews with tech founders on my iPhone in late 2014. I had no previous background, knowledge or experience of media production. A TV producer saw some of those interviews and asked me if I’d be up for making a TV show about ‘startups’. That proposition sounded like a good buzz so I set about raising the money to make a TV show.

I was later shocked to discover that successfully raising the funds was absolutely no guarantee of getting a show on TV. Enter YouTube, followed soon after by Facebook. These platforms enabled me to upload my video content whenever I wanted and at no cost. So why would I bother with TV? I built a SquareSpace website to make it easier to be found and connected my YouTube channel to bring the site to life. IrishStartUpTV was born.

The original idea of a website was to help my videos be found by an audience that (at the time) only associated YouTube with cat videos. Within a few days of the website going live I was receiving emails with collaboration and other business offers. Within a few months I’d built up a decent library of interviews, significantly upped my production values and secured my first paying customers for my videography services. I’ve since interviewed over 200 startup founders, government ministers, heads of industry from Ireland and abroad and have had two viral video collaborations viewed by nearly half a million people.

My best advice for anyone hoping to start a media career is to just do it. Find an area that you are passionate about be that business sport or makeup. Build a YouTube channel to showcase your skills and interests. Facebook is a great way to get eyeballs on you — if you can schedule a live at fixed times and discuss something with a consistent theme (a subject you are both expert and passionate about) then you will set yourself up for best success!

If you put a bit of effort into banging out some regular content then you’ll have a platform to sell yourself from in jig time. If you smash it on social media you may not even need to get a job in TV. If you’re still fixed on TV though you’ll at least have something that you can use to showcase your skills. If you build a big enough audience you’ll also find it much easier to negotiate when it comes to discussing salaries and contracts!