Comments on: A quick startup formula

By: mj

mj — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 23:21:22 +0000

Thanks for the comment – I utterly believe that there may be value in replacing a placement programme with an entrepreneurship programme. Belfast Met, NWRC, SRC and University of Ulster were very receptive to the idea. QUB very resistant.

By: a

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 23:13:57 +0000

i totally agree with your idea on software engineer placements. I’ve just done my placement and had contemplated (before getting my placement sorted) starting my own company. Even now – in final year I’m thinking of starting up a company with a couple of my friends from uni.

totally right on the 6 months usefulness, some enterprise software standards are so complex it’s scary!

By: mj

mj — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 00:05:02 +0000

Students are actually better equipped than ‘older folk’ to play this kind of game. When starting up my first business I had to pay a mortgage, feed family and essentially be responsible for the ‘families’ of five others.

Students, for the most part, don’t have those kinds of responsibility so their risk is correspondingly lower.

If CoworkingBelfast and/or Code4Pizza and/or sponsors can pick up the tab for equipment, rent, heat, light, leccy, coffee, professional services and a delivery of pizza once a day (just as an example), then the costs for the student really amount to ‘time’.

And yes, it’s their free time. This is the same free time that older folk give up when they try to create something new so they can be their own boss or develop that ew project. There are adults with families taking a gamble on an idea, a team that can develop code, and a mentor who can pull it all together so why shoudn’t an interactive media or software engineering undergraduate?

InvestNI and Momentum are very different organisations.

InvestNI is a government agency, it is funded by the general public and they have to be responsible with our tax money and gain a return on investment to the best of their ability.

Momentum is a membership organisation of ICT-related companies who pay membership fees because they see the value of banding together.

If something happens in this space then it will be a combination of government funding via InvestNI or NIScreen or the Arts Council, the support and mentoring that is available from Momentum or Digital Circle, the efforts of the lecturers in colleges and universities, the time that the people involved in CoWorking Belfast or Code4Pizza can give and the sweat and energy of the students involved.

Some people will not be able to play, that’s for sure. That’ll be the people who haven’t got the time or the passion. If you don’t have the time (because you have to work two jobs or you have other commitments) then that’s just the way the cookie crumbles. Life isn’t fair sometimes. If you don’t have the passion, then what’s the problem?

This is about creating something new. There’s no funding yet, there’s no building, no desks or computers, there’s just an idea and a request for some faith.

I do welcome your comment, though. It’s interesting to see additional perspectives on these things. It might not work, it might result in a Silicon Valley – I’m willing to take a punt.

By: Gary

Gary — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:31:38 +0000

Even placement students need to eat and somewhere to sleep not mention the equipment and professional services costs so the funding required would be considerable. In today’s economic climate banks won’t so keen to take a punt on students. This means that as usual it will be the select few who will be able to play this game.
Surely InvestNI / Momentum could be persuaded to run an annual competition which would provide an annual bursary to one or two groups.

Even at around 10k per person the cost of funding two three person groups would only account for a fraction of what InvestNI spend their CEO’s salary.

Just a thought