It will be mistletoe and wine, funding and equity, along with a few war stories among the conversation at the annual SUXmas party in Dublin on 11 December for 350 of this year’s start-up survivors.
The concept for SUXmas is a party for the start-up community in Ireland by the community, explained organiser Fionnuala Healy.
This year’s event will be held at Lillie’s Bordello and start-ups interested in attending have been urged to book before tickets run out.
Healy said being a start-up can be a daunting and lonely business and fostering community and being part of a community is important for entrepreneurs and their colleagues.
“Every year there are lots of events in the start-up community. Tech meet-ups, legal meet-ups, been there done that talks, hacker events, and pitching competitions, to name a few. At these events there is always an agenda for the attendee – to meet someone, to learn something, get press coverage, to demo a product, or to catch a VC’s eye. Most of the time it’s only one or maybe two of the core start-up team that attend an event.
“Techies know techies, CEOs know CEOs, and so on. A lot of the time early stage start-ups are just two or three people. It can be a lonely and scary place without support from the network in the start-up community.”
Giving back to those who help
During the lead up to the event, the SUXmas elves are asking the start-up community to nominate 10 people as the top helpers and mentors throughout the year as chance to give back.
The SUXmas elves will do an anonymous call out to thank the people who have been your start-up’s rock of sense, will add them to Santa’s nice list, and give them two tickets to SUXmas. You can nominate your start-up hero by emailing the elves.
One of the people on last year’s nice list was Silicon Republic CEO and editor-at-large Ann O’Dea. In recognition of her and the Silicon Republic team’s ongoing work to promote women in STEM in its Women Invent Tomorrow campaign, the elves have created a discount code for Silicon Republic readers: womeninvent.
Festive Christmas image via Shutterstock
