About the Event

The All-Island Innovation Programme is an InterTradeIreland funded programme established to promote and encourage innovation for Small-to-Medium size Enterprises (SME) across the island. Continuing the three-year programme we are hosting an open innovation breakfast lecture followed by an interactive masterclass in Riddel Hall, with Joe Haslam, Executive Director, Owners Scaleup Program at IE University.

It’s not all about unicorns...
Growth through innovation: Start-up to Scale-up

For about 45 minutes, Joe Haslam, Executive Director, Owners Scaleup Program at IE University takes a look at indigenous entrepreneurship with a different perspective to the Silicon Valley Model. He will discuss:

• Growth doesn’t make you a scaleup
• Small, and want to grow? Big, and want to hold on? Get the basics right
• Go in at the right time (it’s later than you think)
• Embrace the era of ‘big’
• Ignoring the startup hype
• It’s not all about unicorns
• The advantages of scale
• Culture at scale

The second part of the morning has a limited number of places – on a first come, first served basis and will feature an intense workshop with Joe where he will take individuals through their specific challenges and give advice, suggestions and an opinion on how best to scale your business.

He will explore some pitfalls around trying to grow a business and give some tips and hints as to how they are best avoided. For example, one of the biggest errors a startup can make is premature scaling, which means adding sales and marketing before product/market fit is fully achieved. The result is an over-promise and under-deliver scenario that’s hard to recover from.

1. The concept of chasing VC and being totally focused on growth, is most common in Silicon Valley, but much of the rest of the world takes a different approach – what’s the best one for you?
2. Whereas startups excel in generating demand, operations will help ensure you’ve got the supply to match it.
3. Often great people won’t join a company until some of the chaos is tamed and structure is in place. How do you recruit and retain them?
4. Paths to growth outside the Silicon Valley norm, the pros and cons of getting big, and more.

Professor Joe Haslam is the Executive Director of the Owners Scaleup Program at IE Business School in Madrid, Spain. This is a program specially designed for small and medium sized companies that want to scaleup. IE was ranked by the Financial Times in 2017 as the 3rd leading Business School in Europe. He is also the presenter of the High Impact Online Program "Scaleup: How to successfully manage growth" and teaches an elective in the MBA course called "Scaling Up Your Startup" In 1998, Prof Haslam was on the founding Team of Marrakech, a Dublin based e-procurement company that raised over $75m in Venture Capital and scaled to over 250 people. He is the co-founder and Chairman of Hot Hotels, the first company from Spain to be accelerated by the Techstars program in the USA (Boston, Summer 2015). Joe was born in Ireland and has lived in Madrid for the past 15 years.

• IE is the 3rd best ranked Business School in Europe by the FT
• Co founder of Marrakech, raised $75m and scaled to 250 people
• Co founder of Hot Hotels, a Techstars startup (Boston 2015)

THE EVENT

8.00am
Networking Breakfast

8.30am
'Start-up to Scale-up: Growth through Innovation'
Keynote Lecture from Professor Joe Haslam

10.00am
Innovation Masterclass

Please note you must register for each event seperately to attend, as the masterclass is limited in numbers.