Enterprise Ireland

glanman

Hi all, first time poster so go easy on me!!

I'm working for a company as marketing manager and I have a meeting this week with Enterprise Ireland for the first time. WE have secured funding and backing from EI but this is my first meeting with them since this has came. I am meeting with their consultant for the sector I work in.

So my question is have any of you had dealings with them and what advice would you give me? I want to utilise the consultant as much as I can as it could save a lot of time carrying out research.

If you have any questions ask me and I'll do my best to answer them without saying who I work for and what sector. Also I will be glad to update this after the meeting if there is interest!

Thanks

jimbo 22

Hi

Ive been tring to get funding for a feasability study for over three months from Enterprise Ireland and its dragging on - one excuse after another.
Ive been told that all applications are under further reviews due to the Big 'R'
My experience so far is dont reley on them for funding and expect v.long delays!!!!!!

byrne0f56789

Don't change your business strategy to fit in with EI requirements. You must conform with a lot of bureaucracy to work with EI. It does take a lot of time to do this, so don't let it encroach on your business development time too much.

glanman

Well all we had our meeting. It went well enough and they have huge amount of resources both financial and staff wise that are available to us. From a research side they have vast databases and contacts that should help us. They have also said that they can open a lot more doors for us, a lot quicker than we ever could so thats good.

Regarding the funding, it has been frozen but we were given assurances that it will get the go ahead once they are released. Until then we have access to them and they will help us as much as they can.

We got some great leads from it but at the moment these leads may me a bit too soon for our business as we want to have our model up and running in ROI before rolling it out abroad.

It has been benificial but its early days yet so cant say too much about how it has helped us. Next step is we need to outline exactly what we want from them and get them to do that. In essence they are working for us so its best try to get as much out of them as possible and ake sure they do what we want them to do for us, not what they want us to do!!

caminowebmaster

If you need some help with marketing there is a free guide for Irish businesses here http://www.cubeonlinemarketing.ie/cube-seo-guide-for-irish-business/

Hope it helps.

bottomdog

glanman wrote: »

Regarding the funding, it has been frozen but we were given assurances that it will get the go ahead once they are released. Until then we have access to them and they will help us as much as they can.

Take a look at EI website, its a confusing mess, so many different funds, so many unexplained aspects, different divisions, it's a complete maze of a mess.

They will drag you through endless paperwork, and meetings, appear to be interested in all you do, and in the end you will get about 25,000 euro off them, which is just about enough cash to keep a mid sized company's overseas office going for two days.....which is nice but you'll spend three days doing the paperwork to get the grant. Figure that one out yourself.

And......if you do take the €25,000 off them, and you do make a go of your venture.....they will forever claim the glory of how they set you up as they take more money from the department of finance to employ themselves.

The idea of EI is good.....I know about 40 companies that got grants from EI...all off them jokers with time on their hands to shuffle the paperwork. The real companies that generate seven figure profits rather push on at speed alone.

The concept is good, but unless the money is serious....its not serious......pity really