This past weekend marked the pinnacle of our study abroad program – 3 Day StartUp Dublin. 3DS is a group of businesses, government agencies, university faculties, and students striving to make a change and bring social entrepreneurship opportunities to the world. They believe that social entrepreneurship brings about innovative solutions to societal problems and that the answer lies in collaboration and innovative thinking. “3 Day Startup Weekend” is a 72-hour learning-by-doing workshop that teaches entrepreneurial skills to students in an extreme hands-on environment. 3 Day Startup focuses on social entrepreneurship – technologies, businesses and ideas that bring about social change or impact. The idea of the program simple: start a company over the course of three days.
Friday
Meredith, Rohan, and I kicked off 3DS weekend by grabbing lunch at Pepper Pot Cafe before the first official 3DS event that evening. PSA: Pepper Pot is home to the best raspberry jam in the world. I’m currently trying to finish a jar before I leave in just a few short days. After our late lunch we made the trek to Gravity Centre – a creative flexible workspace – and our gracious hosts for the weekend.
When we arrived at 5:30 p.m. we had the opportunity to meet other participants who we could potentially be working with over the course of the weekend. They were all current or recently graduated students, old and young, who had amazing ideas. Some students were from University College Dublin whereas others had travelled in from Wexford, Dalkey, and even India.
At 6 p.m. we wasted no time kickstarting the program, we broke out into small groups and began brainstorming ideas. Before we started the program Brad had told us that the European students were excited to have American students participating with them because we brought qualities and traits that they don’t usually strongly exhibit. Within the first 30 seconds of working with my small group I found that one of those qualities is the ability to facilitate. I grabbed a pen and paper and started giving the whirlwind of ideas we had some flow and direction. The ideas we generated ranged from creating affordable virtual reality education programs to developing urban microfarms that could employ and feed Dublin’s large homeless population. Some of our ideas were off the wall because in this module no idea could be criticized, it could only be met with, “Yes and….” It was a great experience because since there was no criticism no one had any hesitation when presenting an idea! Once we had about 3 pages of ideas, we had the difficult decision our narrowing it down to two ideas. These two ideas would then be presented to the group in the form of 1-minute pitches. After some constructive debate we settled on virtual reality education and a youth rewards card that would make youths engage in more civic activities.
At the end of this module we heard 11 student generated pitches, and then held a blind vote to see which 5 would be worked on over the weekend. The selected pitches were:
MyMoodandMe
Problem: People facing mental health issues lack the funds and access to receive affordable care
Solution: MyMoodandMe empowers people with mental health issues to complete day-to-day tasks as a way to give counseling and advice
Elderhomeshare
Problem: Young adults in Dublin struggle to find cost-efficient living arrangements while elderly individuals struggle to maintain an independent lifestyle in their home alone
Solution: Elderhomeshare is a service that connects elderly homeowners with home-seekers
GetUp
Problem: A lack of civic engagement among young people continues to phase Ireland
Solution: EarnIT uses business incentives to promote civic engagement with a reward system for Irish youth
LYNKiD
Problem: Communication between parents often suffers or becomes hostile as the result of a divorce or separation, causing a child’s well-being to suffer.
Solution: LYNKiD provides a method of streamlined communication for separated parents regarding the well-being of their child
Give A Day
Problem: Charities need more funds to fulfill their missions, but individual-level fund-raising is limited by a range of practical and social constraints
Solution: Ethereal suggests a new giving model by re-routing business costs (like consultancy fees, for example) straight to a charity
During Group Formation I chose to work with the Elderhomeshare founder, Saoirse Sheridan. During the founders elaboration she emphasized that she needed someone who was good at market research and strategy, so I thought it was a good fit for me and her idea seemed like the most plausible of the five. Plus, I was inspired by her passion and devotion to her project since she is currently living with an elderly resident herself. Recently, in an unfortunate turn of events, Saoirse was evicted from a flat she had been renting for 15 years. Currently working as an intern she found it much more economically friendly to rent a room in an elderly person’s home since they weren’t using the space. Her presence provides the elder with casual social interaction and someone who can do the “heavy lifting” i.e. taking out the rubbish. At the end of group formation, we were a small (but mighty) team of 4 – myself, Saoirse, fellow UT student-Emily Kendrick, and entrepreneur- Liz Hickey.
During our group brain dump it was easy to see that every member of the team brought something to the table which made me excited to begin collaboration the next morning.
Saturday
We arrived at Gravity Centre at 9 a.m. and were delighted to see that Roasted Brown Cafe had catered a lovely yogurt, fruit, and granola breakfast. After we got our plates Saoirse walked us through her vision for Elderhomeshare. However, I was suddenly put under quite a bit of pressure when Saoirse announced she would invest a large portion of her savings to fund Elderhomeshare if this weekend was successful.
After an hour or two of critiquing Saorise’s plan and polishing her marketing strategy we had to do something that pushed me way out of my comfort zone – gather customer feedback from the streets. Even though I thought it would be much more effective to spend our 3 hours of “customer discovery” drafting surveys, the 3DS coordinator insisted we use the face-to-face approach. First of all, our target demographic is the elderly – one of the most standoffish target markets. Second, I know how much I loathe when strangers approach me with interview questions on the street. I strongly believe we were set up to fail. Standing outside of Dunnes, I discovered that the elderly can be quite deceiving. When they really don’t want to talk to you they are surprisingly quick and agile! Even though there were a good number of humiliating rejections my team was able to gather some quality feedback on the idea of Elderhomeshare.
L
uckily around 2 p.m. we were able to nurse our wounds with lunch at The Workshop. It’s a hidden gem on the River Liffey, because it has a quaint pub atmosphere but I was able to enjoy a fabulous three course meal.
When we returned to Gravity Centre after lunch we were hit with another brick, we had 1 1/2 hours to create and presentation and a 5-minute pitch. Even with my experience drafting presentations for TexasMedia, I was at a loss on where to begin. Once we were given this assignment I immediately felt anxious because I’m a neurotic perfectionist. I don’t work well under deadlines since I hate turning in/presenting something I feel is incomplete or sub par. Thus, in an effort to avoid having a mental breakdown my first step was the most insignificant task – picking a Google Slide layout from Slide Carnival. Emily and I then worked tirelessly trying to convey our idea in the most effective way possible. Even though this was just our intermediate pitch, I didn’t want to be surpassed by the other groups. When the timer sounded that we were out of time to prepare our pitch, I was only just satisfied with our work. I knew there were some major holes in our case that could be prodded during the Q & A section. Saorsie did a good job presenting, but during the presentation I realized that although we had introduced our problem, solution, target market, competition, and media strategy we were missing one key thing – the description of the product we are selling, Elderhomeshare. Talk about a d’oh moment. Once the pitches were over it is safe to say we were all feeling pretty braindead, so I jotted a few notes about what I noticed and we all called it a night.
Sunday – Pitch Day
Quite possibly the most trying day of my life. After leaving Gravity a little after 10:30 p.m. and getting back to UCD at about 11:00 p.m. I wasn’t the most thrilled about being back at the program at 9:30 a.m. Like the day we were working under a deadline on our presentations and pitches, except this time they had to be flawless since a panel of judges would be watching them. When I arrived I was already feeling the heat because even though we had a group of 4, only 2 of us really knew how to use Google Slides. Our group had just rested into a steady work flow when the 3DS director approached and asked if she could make some recommendations of things she noticed last night. Expecting only a few minor tweaks, I was in disbelief when she walked away and her criticisms resulted in a remodel of our entire deck. As if I wasn’t stressed out enough, one of the more impressive mentors, Nicolas Heinze gave us input that resulted in even more drastic changes. Plus some of his advice countered what the 3DS director had advised us to do. So now instead of a 10 page deck, we were pushing 20. I could feel like the clocking ticking down as I stared at this daunting task in front of me. With the stress of the project, the detrimental amount of coffee in my system, and the incredibly overheated workspace a perfect storm had been created and for the first time in my collegiate career I experienced a minor panic attack.
I often joke that my impossibly high standards will one day cause a mental breakdown, and this weekend I reached that point. I walked outside to compose myself, I leaned against the wall and tried to ease my mind with the advice Brad had given me earlier in the weekend – “you need to be okay with turning in the best you can do for what you are given.” I then counted to 10, drank some water, stepped back inside, delegated more tasks than I had before, and got back to work. Brad saw that I was clearly distraught so I told him my predicament regarding incorporation of the conflicting advice. He reminded me that advice is “just opinions from stupid humans” and not everyone is always right. It was our team’s judgement call to decide which direction we wanted to go and pleasing other people shouldn’t be a factor.
Luckily lunch was served soon after my minor meltdown, and a tasty chicken dish from Little Ass Burrito Bar was my saving grace. With a full stomach and clear mind we tackled our presentation deck (with time to spare) and perfected our pitch. Later that afternoon Saorise knocked the pitch out of the park and the panel of judges seemed impressed by the work we did.
During this program I was faced rejection, was challenged and pushed to my limits…and you know what? It didn’t kill me. I’m a stronger individual now and I’m beyond grateful to have had the opportunity to work with such a bright group of students and network with accomplished professionals. Brad told us that the Gravity Centre Board of Directors was ecstatic with the work we did and he’s been contacted by numerous groups asking to set up meetings to discuss the event. I’m excited to have been part of the team that pioneered the first 3DS event in Dublin and I cannot wait to see what comes of it.
Check out the event website!
RocknRove 