New start-ups make their debut at Dublin Beta

1 May 2012

Tech enthusiasts converge at last night's Dublin Beta. Image credit: http://garethfox.wordpress.com/

Dublin Beta held another of its informal get-togethers for Ireland’s tech community last night, when 11 start-ups demoed their wares. And, while he was in town, the San Diego-based lean-start mentor Brant Cooper even stopped by to chat to the self-starters.

The event was buzzing last night with a mixture of techies, creatives and a few curious angel investors filling the rooms at Lost Society on Dublin’s South William Street.

Dublin Beta itself holds quarterly events to get Ireland’s start-up community mixing and networking with each other to share ideas, as well as mixing with potential investors and other tech enthusiasts. Dublin Beta is based on the San Francisco model – SF Beta.

In all, 11 start-ups showcased their innovations at Dublin Beta, with four companies launching on the evening.

Upon arrival you are given casino chips so you can vote for your favourite start-ups in the People’s Choice Awards. The ultimate winners last night were Bullet HQ, which took first prize, followed by Soundwave and, thirdly, Boss Metrics.

So here’s a taste of some of the new ventures I got chatting to last night.

Hubb.it
As usual, males seemed to dominate the start-up scene, but it was refreshing to meet with Catherine Morris, the co-founder of Hubb.it, a new Northern Ireland digital start-up.

Hubb.it, which is in beta mode at the minute, is aiming to create a global event community for both people heading to events such as music festivals, while it is also reaching out to event organisers.

Morris, along co-founder Breda Doherty, also showcased the start-up at SxSW in Austin, Texas, back in March. She said that the site will be coming out of beta mode at the start of June.

Mytypeofpeople.com
Next up was Charlie Lee, a software architect who has founded Mytypeofpeople.com, which is also in beta mode. Lee said the idea for the start-up came to him about 10 months ago.

He said that he has plenty of ideas for the site. At the minute, once you sign up, Mytypeofpeople.com will pull in your ‘like’ data and ‘Check-in’ data from Facebook so you can seek out people who share similar interests.

Bullet HQ

Peter Connor and John Farrelly, co-founders of Bullet HQ. Image credit: http://garethfox.wordpress.com/

Bullet HQ
Peter Connor and John Farrelly are the founders of Bullet HQ, a new bootstrapped venture that has set its sights on disrupting the accountancy marketplace.

The start-up was the people’s favourite on the evening, gleaning first place in the People’s Choice Awards last night.

Connor said that Bullet HQ is targeting SMEs with its online accounting and payroll software. He said that the aim of the software is to empower SMEs to file their own tax returns without having to pay for an external accountant to do so for them.

Connor said that the idea for the application came about when Farrelly was fined because his accountant did not file his tax returns on time.

And as well as fully automating your accounts via the web-based solution, the duo have also come up with an iPhone app so companies can track their mileage expenses.

And what’s most interesting is that Farrelly and Connor built their product for just €1,400.

Soundwave

Aidan Sliney and Brendan O’Driscoll, co-founders of Soundwave. Image credit: http://garethfox.wordpress.com/
Soundwave
As for the start-up that came second last night, this was Soundwave. The new venture, which is currently engaged in the NDRC Launchpad accelerator, has developed a smartphone application and web service that can track in real-time what songs people are listening to by location, song and time.

“It’s like crowdsourcing for music,” explained co-founder Brendan O’Driscoll. He set up the new venture along with Aidan Sliney. And they have since enlisted two developers, Noel Lynch and Sylvester Eigbogba.

Boss Metrics

Conor Lynch and Barry O’Sullivan of Boss Metrics. Image credit: http://garethfox.wordpress.com/
Boss Metrics
Finally, I met with the third winning team on the evening: Boss Metrics, which is also on Launchpad right now.

Conor Lynch, who incidentally is also behind Socialmedia.ie, told me that the new digital marketing analytics tool is targeted at SMEs.

Using SaaS, Lynch said the aim is to go international with the tool, which will merge all of your data from the likes of LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter, so that companies can analyse their digital marketing trends and see what’s working and what’s not working. In that way they can create reports and plan future digital marketing campaigns, he said.

As for Dublin Beta, we’ll keep you informed about when the next event will be taking place!

Carmel Doyle was a long-time reporter with Silicon Republic

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