Experience with local enterprise office

Mike_C

Hi all
What has peoples experience with local enterprise offices been like? Talked to two officers neighboring counties- Seems like they are only interested in giving grants to companies with export potential? I thought that was EI remit.

Another unwritten pre requisite is that a business in receipt of such Grant is a food based Enterprise. The more nutritious the better.

Be well and win

Firstly in terms of grants, it depends on what your business is. Some business types are excluded, retail outlets being a case in point for most grants and also they have to work under restrictions around displacement, in other words, they are not going to grant aid a job if it comes at a cost of someone else in another business losing a job

Secondly there are various types of grants ranging from employment grants, to grants for website enhancements and also feasability studies so it depends on what it is you are looking for.

LEO's have finite budgets and there is an application process. My experience is that it is not unusual for an application to be rejected, sent back for rework and then accepted 2nd or 3rd time. Also your tax affairs need to be fully in order and you will need a business plan

Quality of support depends on each LEO, some are good and some not so good but in general its pretty good and they will appoint mentors to support you as well. Also the requirement around it being food related is absolutely not correct.

EI will normally only get involved if the business employs 10 or more people

Axwell

Be well and win wrote: »

EI will normally only get involved if the business employs 10 or more people

EI are mostly interested in turnover and the potential to export. Employees are a nice bonus because it creates jobs but if you have strong export potential they tend to be all over you.

Deleted User wrote: »

Another unwritten pre requisite is that a business in receipt of such Grant is a food based Enterprise. The more nutritious the better.

This is completely untrue...

My experience with LEOs and EI is poor.

Gotta remember you are dealing with government employees.

LEO's are great for jobs for the lads, as in they will offer you hourly mentoring rates for their mates. I remember having filed a patent with the top patent attorney in the country, and already gone through the process, getting repeatedly pitched to get mentoring on IP despite them knowing my patent was filed already after months of work.

I have found both very condescending, and have been provided awful advice repeatedly. EI representing Ireland overseas are often embarrassing in their setup, and while there's the odd decent person in there who tries to help, ultimately I have no interest in dealing with them at all anymore because of my experiences.

Bord Bia on the other hand are a proper professional organization if you happen to be dealing with food. Young hungry dedicated employees who behave like a top private organization instead of a government one.

EI have refused to help me a few times just because Bord Bia have helped me, purely on the basis that they are competitive with Bord Bia. Which is I believe very very poor given they are State organizations charged with helping Irish business.

An LEO consultant once told me Im getting ahead of myself building a production line with only €200,000 of sales. I said to him, what should I do? Not produce the product and just go back to bed?

tacofries

I can't recommend Mayo LEO and EI enough. The staff have gone above and beyond for me and I have ended up signing deals with quite a few of the companies that they connected us with.

Some people complain if they get their first grant application rejected, well get over it and spend your time making a second application that has learnt from the mistakes of the first. I can only speak for Mayo LEO but if you are willing to put the work in, then they will be more than willing and able to help you.

In terms of offices abroad, I have found both EI UK and EI USA brilliant. Very well connected with quality leads.

_Brian

Was talking to someone who assesses projects and he said that if you can’t put a green spin on it your at a serious disadvantage too.

Be well and win

to be honest and based on what I've seen, the main reason applications for support get rejected are either tax affairs not being in order or very poor numbers in the business case. And by poor numbers I mean clearly padded or unrealistic, where for example you see a 50% rise in sales and little or no cost increase and no justification for that change. Green is irrelevant under the rules as are food etc.

There are some businesses they do frown on, gambling is one for example.

At the end of the day it is all county council money and they have finite budgets so I'm not sure how joined up accross the country they are

pedroeibar1

tacofries wrote: »

...Some people complain if they get their first grant application rejected, well get over it and spend your time making a second application that has learnt from the mistakes of the first. I can only speak for Mayo LEO but if you are willing to put the work in, then they will be more than willing and able to help you.

In terms of offices abroad, I have found both EI UK and EI USA brilliant. Very well connected with quality leads.

I agree. Why is it that the first people to slag EI & LEO’s generally are those looking for grant, something for nothing? Why the sense of entitlement? It’s taxpayers’ money, it’s the applicant’s job to put a good case forward. The LEOs want to say ‘yes’ but the applicant has to prove in the submission that ‘yes’ is the correct answer. Inevitably the fault lies with a half-a$$ed submission and the answer is ‘no’. As a taxpayer I’m happy with that.

As for EI, I have done a considerable amount of work with it both here and overseas, right back to the days of some of its constituent parts – CTT and IDA. My experience with them -mostly Paris office and on both coasts of the US - has been excellent. In the deals that went ‘wrong’ it inevitably was the Irish company/exporter that dropped the ball and CTT /ITB (as it then was) was left to pick up the pieces. Very same with a large project (Japan) I was involved with (IDA, ITB and ICC), it was the Irish company that royally screwed up.

Yes EI staff members are ‘government’ employees, but most are highly dedicated and do an excellent job. Too good in fact, as many spend just a few years there before being snatched by the private sector. I have several senior role contacts in industry and IFSC who are ex EI staffers.

pedroeibar1

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

I agree. Why is it that the first people to slag EI & LEO’s generally are those looking for grant, something for nothing? Why the sense of entitlement? It’s taxpayers’ money, it’s the applicant’s job to put a good case forward. The LEOs want to say ‘yes’ but the applicant has to prove in the submission that ‘yes’ is the correct answer. Inevitably the fault lies with a half-a$$ed submission and the answer is ‘no’. As a taxpayer I’m happy with that.

As for EI, I have done a considerable amount of work with it both here and overseas, right back to the days of some of its constituent parts – CTT and IDA. My experience with them -mostly Paris office and on both coasts of the US - has been excellent. In the deals that went ‘wrong’ it inevitably was the Irish company/exporter that dropped the ball and CTT /ITB (as it then was) was left to pick up the pieces. Very same with a large project (Japan) I was involved with (IDA, ITB and ICC), it was the Irish company that royally screwed up.

Yes EI staff members are ‘government’ employees, but most are highly dedicated and do an excellent job. Too good in fact, as many spend just a few years there before being snatched by the private sector. I have several senior role contacts in industry and IFSC who are ex EI staffers.

In my dealing with the LEO, the one and only time I will ever deal with LEO, I didn't approach them actually, they suggested to the company that they would fund a factory, contribute to staff salaries and various other things once we came onto their radar in the media. Would be absolutely delighted to do it they said. Multiple meetings, everything great, going to create a string of jobs for that counties suffering economy. But when it came to actually delivering they didn't at all, said we should not build our own factory, after generating 200K in sales after a few short months in business. Relentlessly suggested mentoring for X amount an hour, despite knowing what I said above, and knowing well my track record in business which is a lot more extensive then the local mentors they had lined up. Its was an altogether embarassing affair, and I would not consider wasting my time with an LEO again. There is no sense of entitlement. There was an ambition to help that local economy and have the business to mutually benefit from it.

As for EI, I did approach them looking for help with the start of this company in question. A company which I might add now has a 7 figure valuation in a year and half having recently completed Series A, sales across 4 continents, IP, and a 7 figure turnover coming this year.
EI assigned me someone who knew nothing about the field I was going into. The introduction phone call was condescending to say the least. Didn't qualify for the HPSU she said because she wasn't sure about our export potential. The Company was nominated for Food and Beverage exporter of the year to Asia less then a year later, done solo after they refused to help introduce me to contacts in Asia because I had gone on a trade mission with Bord Bia. Severe bull**** from an organisation my tax euro's fund. Pissing contests between government departments are not acceptable. Should not be acceptable to any citizen.
After I complained about this, they brought me back in and in the meeting, again condescending. When I said I was applying to the banks for finance, she intimated I had basically no chance to get funding, and I should consider giving away a big chunk of my company to an investor instead. 2 days later I had an offer from 2 banks.
Recently on a trip to China last year at the biggest export exhibition in the world, I found EI's Ireland stand in the technology section in a far corner hidden away. No branding or proper marketing on it, TV's facing into the wall with their corporate video. Embarrassing to say the least. In comparison to Bord Bia with a giant Irish stand, with Ministers opening it ceremonially, and dozens of meetings set up for Irish companies. Night and day in terms of professionalism.

On my travels in the last year I have met at least half a dozen high ranking EI people at top level government meetings in Japan, China, Korea and Europe. All make promises to help, whenever I follow up none of them have helped. Never have i received a follow up from all of these people who are apparently 'great guys'.

So that is my experience. I found the same condescending attitude in EI the only other time I sought them out over 10 years ago.
As for the LEO's, I would concede that each county is different, different people so each one is going to be a different experience. Mine with the particular one I dealt with was a disaster and a waste of time. I now have 12 employees producing my product in another country that would have been jobs created for that county. A blessing in disguise as it turned out.

I would also add that I know how to make a submission for funding having secured funding from banks, and VC's around the world for multiple projects in multiple continents across a variety of industries. I can say for sure that financing multi story buildings and fixture and fittings to go inside them is a lot more complex then applying for a piece of plastic to stick on a wall. And running a complex startup involves being smart enough to not waste your hours on non productive things with time wasters which i find these 2 organizations in questions have been for me. That time was valuable and much better spent elsewhere. I have learned that costly lesson, but am happy I did. Consulting on it is one thing Pedro, suffering it with the potential folding of your business a result is another thing.

tacofries

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I would also add that I know how to make a submission for funding having secured funding from banks, and VC's around the world for multiple projects in multiple continents across a variety of industries. I can say for sure that financing multi story buildings and fixture and fittings to go inside them is a lot more complex then applying for a piece of plastic to stick on a wall. And running a complex startup involves being smart enough to not waste your hours on non productive things with time wasters which i find these 2 organizations in questions have been for me. That time was valuable and much better spent elsewhere. I have learned that costly lesson, but am happy I did. Consulting on it is one thing Pedro, suffering it with the potential folding of your business a result is another thing.

I’m not going to get into an argument with you El Rifle but for a person that speaks about how condescending everyone else seems to be, I think you show the height of hypocrisy when trying to display your apparent superiority in applying for funding for multi story buildings rather than ‘a piece of plastic to stick to your wall’.

As said before, my experience with LEO and EI, and the banks for that matter, has been brilliant and I’m glad to see that no double funding is going on between Bord Bia, EI and indeed the LEO’s.

pedroeibar1

Deleted User wrote: »

In my dealing with the LEO, the one and only time I will ever deal with LEO, ..............Consulting on it is one thing Pedro, suffering it with the potential folding of your business a result is another thing.

I’m not getting into a pi$$ing game on this. I seriously question your criticism El Rifle, based as you admit on a single experience. You write about seven figure turnover, all the successes you have achieved, etc., and yet the amounts of grant available from LEO’s for most projects amount to chicken$hit money of a few grand –the bigger ones, the priming grants must be matched and are capped at 150k. Achieving 200k in sales in ‘a few short months’ as you claim is indeed laudable, but it does not constitute a track record, nor is any indicator of a rosy future. Any investor would not regard a company with one single gimmicky product as a bankable business.

Contrary to what you write. I was not a consultant when describing my experiences above and had had skin in the game. As I pointed out here before, I have little experience of LEO’s, but I have been involved in many EI and IDA projects. My experience of EI has been the opposite of yours. Unlike the cause of your embarrassment, mine has been at the ineptitude of a few Irish companies, mainly exporters. Thankfully it was infrequent, but when they did go wrong it was spectacularly so, ranging from downright stupidity to plain fraud.

There has been mention also of State agencies competing – that can/did happen, but it now is very rare. The main mover for creating the Enterprise Ireland entity and its one-stop-shop face of ‘Ireland Inc.’ was Albert Reynolds who saw no reason to have different premises in overseas cities – all should be confined under one roof. AR did not achieve it, but Des O’Malley – who had been Industry minister several times under FF (before he set up the PDs) and indeed subsequently - shared that view and from memory it was under PD influence the various entities were merged in stages into ‘EI’ (much against the will of the constituent staffs!). For example, all entities were relocated to one building on rue de Miromesnil in Paris and the various quangos – IDA, ITB, IIRS, etc were amalgamated in stages.

FWIW at another stage in my career I’ve worked in conjunction with the PEE (Postes d’Expansion Economiques) the French Govt equivalent of EI overseas and despite hugely different resources, I believe EI does just as good a job.
Like the other Pedro, I have often been brought near to tears by seeing a good idea/project ruined by its promotor. EI and LEO often provide a wake-up call even when they turn down a project. It should be viewed as such, and not arrogantly dismissed.

pedroeibar1

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

I’m not getting into a pi$$ing game on this. I seriously question your criticism El Rifle, based as you admit on a single experience. You write about seven figure turnover, all the successes you have achieved, etc., and yet the amounts of grant available from LEO’s for most projects amount to chicken$hit money of a few grand –the bigger ones, the priming grants must be matched and are capped at 150k. Achieving 200k in sales in ‘a few short months’ as you claim is indeed laudable, but it does not constitute a track record, nor is any indicator of a rosy future. Any investor would not regard a company with one single gimmicky product as a bankable business.

Contrary to what you write. I was not a consultant when describing my experiences above and had had skin in the game. As I pointed out here before, I have little experience of LEO’s, but I have been involved in many EI and IDA projects. My experience of EI has been the opposite of yours. Unlike the cause of your embarrassment, mine has been at the ineptitude of a few Irish companies, mainly exporters. Thankfully it was infrequent, but when they did go wrong it was spectacularly so, ranging from downright stupidity to plain fraud.

There has been mention also of State agencies competing – that can/did happen, but it now is very rare. The main mover for creating the Enterprise Ireland entity and its one-stop-shop face of ‘Ireland Inc.’ was Albert Reynolds who saw no reason to have different premises in overseas cities – all should be confined under one roof. AR did not achieve it, but Des O’Malley – who had been Industry minister several times under FF (before he set up the PDs) and indeed subsequently - shared that view and from memory it was under PD influence the various entities were merged in stages into ‘EI’ (much against the will of the constituent staffs!). For example, all entities were relocated to one building on rue de Miromesnil in Paris and the various quangos – IDA, ITB, IIRS, etc were amalgamated in stages.

FWIW at another stage in my career I’ve worked in conjunction with the PEE (Postes d’Expansion Economiques) the French Govt equivalent of EI overseas and despite hugely different resources, I believe EI does just as good a job.
Like the other Pedro, I have often been brought near to tears by seeing a good idea/project ruined by its promotor. EI and LEO often provide a wake-up call even when they turn down a project. It should be viewed as such, and not arrogantly dismissed.

The reason I am so critical is because it had a significant negative affect on the business in those early days. To be courted to build our initial production line by them with so much positivity wasted over 3 months. The 100K or so they were going to match with is a significant amount of money in the first few months of a startup. It may be chicken feed in the grand scheme of things, but it wasn't at the time.

The reality was that the people in the LEO doing the courting, were not the decision makers. The head of the office sits down with a group made up of 'experts' who make the final decision at the end of it all. One of those experts was from Teagasc of whom I had sat down with the Director and various senior people with the promise of support, but lack of internal coordination meant the person who arrived at the LEO had no idea and in fact gave a negative response on the companies prospects contrary to the head honchos of the organization. These are the types of things that happen with government orgs, and while its just one experience it could have cost me the business. So its a warning for anyone else dealing with people like this what the reality can be. Sure, I imagine theres 100's if not thousands of success stories, but mine certainly was not and harsh realities also need to be presented.
Yourself and Taco assumed that I can't put some numbers together or I am feeling entitled (you should know me better then that by now), and I didn't particularly feel like accepting such nonsense to be honest.

There is no doubt that EI have helped a bunch of Irish companies, but its very important for entrepreneurs if indeed there are any left on this forum anymore, to understand that by putting your trust and faith in these organizations you are taking a risk. It can badly hurt your business if it goes wrong.

pedroeibar1

Deleted User wrote: »

............The reality was that the people in the LEO doing the courting, were not the decision makers. .......t lack of internal coordination meant the person who arrived at the LEO had no idea and in fact gave a negative response.. ......... I imagine theres 100's if not thousands of success stories, but mine certainly was not and harsh realities also need to be presented.
Yourself and Taco assumed that I can't put some numbers together or I am feeling entitled (you should know me better then that by now), and I didn't particularly feel like accepting such nonsense to be honest.

There is no doubt that EI have helped a bunch of Irish companies, but its very important for entrepreneurs .... to understand that by putting your trust and faith in these organizations you are taking a risk. It can badly hurt your business if it goes wrong.

To be honest, Rifle, you jumped in with a bit of a rant based on just one experience. It is unfair to suggest that I dismissed your abilities, I did not, any criticism was general, not specific. My response was to counteract what I saw as a very biased and inaccurate opinion, one that could stop or harm the approach of a newbie to their local LEO or EI.

Never rely or put 100% faith in an application until the cash hits your account. The first lesson in obtaining a loan, a grant, whatever is to understand the process and realise no proposer is going to dictate its terms. For starters, contrary to what you say , if there is an element of risk the people who ‘do the courting’ never will be the decision makers – that is a basic fact, be it for sellers of finance, insurance or LEO grants. The sales skill is to get their business opportunity in the door; it is a separate and very different skill to assess it. (*) A candidate needs to get the sales guy / case officer onside first, and then anticipate any questions that might come from the ‘appraisal committee’ and ensure that all bases are covered.

In my experience all successful businesses have a core ‘driver’ with a matching ego , necessary to get the project over the line and keep it on track. That person usually does not take kindly to criticism. I reiterate they should step back more frequently and take a closer look when they get negative feedback.

(*) We have ample example 2003 - 2008 of what happened when financial sales and risk assessment people colluded to achieve targets/bonuses.

pedroeibar1

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

Never rely or put 100% faith in an application until the cash hits your account. The first lesson in obtaining a loan, a grant, whatever is to understand the process and realise no proposer is going to dictate its terms. For starters, contrary to what you say , if there is an element of risk the people who ‘do the courting’ never will be the decision makers – that is a basic fact, be it for sellers of finance, insurance or LEO grants. The sales skill is to get their business opportunity in the door; it is a separate and very different skill to assess it. (*) A candidate needs to get the sales guy / case officer onside first, and then anticipate any questions that might come from the ‘appraisal committee’ and ensure that all bases are covered.

In my experience all successful businesses have a core ‘driver’ with a matching ego , necessary to get the project over the line and keep it on track. That person usually does not take kindly to criticism. I reiterate they should step back more frequently and take a closer look when they get negative feedback.

.

I would agree with the first paragraph above - having always been having to struggle and push hard to get finance deals over the line, to be courted by LEO's and banks in this case was not what I was used to at all, and I have the same understanding that you outline above now. A lesson learned.

But as you say you are counterbalancing and I think anyone reading this thread will have a balanced view. Because while what you outline is how it is, I didn't know it with quite a bit of experience in business, a newbie is even more likely not to know it. It is a business risk to put time and faith into these things in my view.

As to your second paragraph in this case you are giving too much credit for the employees of these organizations I believe. Unusually kind for you! I might be over cynical at the same time but my experiences were very poor. Im a firm believe recognizing your own mistakes and not making them again is what makes a good entrepreneur. My mistake in this case was having faith in these organizations to help me and deliver which they didn't. It could be that my situation was a rare case, but my opinions are set with both of these organizations for the long term!

Be well and win

I am one of those "experts" who in the past reviewed grant applications for LEO. It was a completely voluntary effort on my behalf, I never got paid one red cent for it, not even travel to go to meetings but I did it because I felt it was a good way for me to give back in a practical manner to my local county and community. Some key points to note here.

• LEO's budgets for grants are small, in many of the small counties it is less then €500k pa. They do not have a bottomless pit of money.
• In my experience, 6 figure grant applications were extremley rare
• When I signed up for this, I signed a confidentiality agreement which meant I could not share details on applications outside of the meeting. I note a previous poster mentioned they had been speaking to Teagasc and a Teagasc person was on the committee who rejected the application. I can only speak for myself but my employer never spoke to me about applicants and I never spoke to them. They were glad I was involved in supporting local enterprise, it ticked our social conscience box but they accepted and understood that a very strong Chineese wall was also in place
  A grant application is a paper review on documents provided. LEO staff will give some facts and answer questions and clarify and voice their opinion but it is up to the committee to decide. Our committee included a tech expert, a banker and a retail expert as well as reps from EI and one or 2 other state bodies so it had wide ranging experience and we often had some robust discussions.
  In my case when reviewing, I'd look at the idea and the business first and then go straight to the accounts and financial forecasts. If the costs were light (its amazing how often things like insurance and rates got excluded) or the sales forecasts were very stepped or did not correspond with costs then I was inclined to dig deeper. Frankly, and I'm speaking here as someone who has run multi-million dollar operations in the past, 50% of the applications were really bad and regardless of the idea, the financial projections were often a pile of poo.
  I think our record rejection of an application was 8 times. Eventually this person got some poor sod to invest seed money and they were bust in 8 months. His idea was crazy and it was clear he didn't have the ability to implement it because he would not accept feedback. We didn't simply reject ideas out of hand, we always gave feedback, sometimes it was listened to and a better application was approved, sometimes it wasn't.
  We didnt always get the decision right, 10% of the budget most years was written off as a loss but we got it right far more often then we got it wrong and many of the business we supported are thriving today
  
  I can't comment on what happens in other counties and LEO's to me are too tied to their county councils and really should be stand alone entities. However in our case, i do think we made some difference.

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pedroeibar1

Be well and win wrote: »

.........Frankly, ....... 50% of the applications were really bad and regardless of the idea, the financial projections were often a pile of poo. ............We didnt always get the decision right, 10% of the budget most years was written off as a loss but we got it right far more often then we got it wrong and many of the business we supported are thriving today

I'm surprised that only 50% of proposals were poop, I thought it would have been much higher - reading LEO wannabe proposers on this forum generally would also suggest a higher figure!
A 10% annual loss ratio on this type of funding is low, it should be higher, but I'd guess that 'central funding' would not wear that!

Be well and win

Might be of interest to anyone in the creative industry

https://www.carlowlive.ie/news/home/472355/revealed-academy-for-creative-start-ups-in-carlow-has-funding-of-100-000-ring-fenced.html