The Irish Times Digital Challenge

The Irish Times is seeking entries for the Irish Times Digital Challenge, a competition for start-up businesses keen to exploit opportunities presented by the great digital switch. Finalists will work directly with The Irish Times, which will provide each with marketing worth €10,000. Entrepreneurs and investors will also help select the overall winner of a €50,000 investment prize

TODAY The Irish Times launches The Irish Times Digital Challenge, an initiative to build strong and mutually beneficial relationships with emerging digital businesses. This is a major step in The Irish Times’ digital development, which will see the company forge creative links with Ireland’s burgeoning startup culture.

A judging panel of entrepreneurs, investors, and Irish Times senior management will select finalists to participate in an eight-week “revenue-sprint”, during which they can determine how best to work with The Irish Times Group. To help the startups in developing their path to market, NDRC LaunchPad will run a mini-startup incubator inside The Irish Times for a period of eight weeks. The Kauffman Foundation recently named LaunchPad as Ireland’s top startup incubator and number six in Europe. So far, LaunchPad companies have gone on to raise €5 million in investment.

Gary Leyden, LaunchPad’s Director, says the process is heavily market-centric.

“It forces the companies to focus on their customer, ensuring that they build products that the market wants,” he said.

During this time, finalists will work closely with The Irish Times to turn their pitch into revenue as rapidly as possible, and will have access to facilities in The Irish Times building.

Perhaps most importantly, each finalist will have an opportunity to work with The Irish Times and leverage it as a channel to customers. Early- stage companies in Ireland have historically faced a difficult challenge reaching a large consumer audience. This is in part why the Irish digital sector has tended to produce middleware, software that enables other business to provide services to consumers. The Irish Times Group web properties reach several million unique users per month, a market that could allow an enterprising startup to rapidly scale its business. In addition, The Irish Times will offer each finalist marketing to a value of €10,000.

Arthur Cox and KPMG are each providing €10,000 worth of free legal, accounting, and taxation advice that will be split up among participants during the eight weeks to help put their businesses on a solid footing for growth. Enterprise Ireland is also offering support during this phase.

The companies will have access to mentors including veteran entrepreneurs such as DemonWare founder Sean Blanchfield, and marketing experts such as Paul Hayes, Ireland’s veteran PR guru, to help fine-tune their business plan and path to revenue. Each of the finalists will be invited to pitch at the 2012 Dublin Web Summit.

At the end of the challenge, one overall winner will be selected by the judges using two criteria: most significant improvement to the reader or users’ experience, and greatest revenue potential. DFJ Esprit will give the overall winner a €50,000 investment prize in the form of a convertible loan note. Brian Caulfield, a technology investor and entrepreneur for two decades and now a partner at London-based venture capital firm DFJ Esprit and a director of The Irish Times, says the Irish startup scene has never been more vibrant and creative.

“Everything that can go digital, will go digital,” he said. “This digital switch is challenging the business models of many industries, from newspapers to record companies to retailers. However, this same disruption is also creating fantastic opportunities for start up companies to exploit.”

The Digital Challenge was inspired by an initiative by Pepsi two years ago, when senior executives at the soft-drinks giant realised that the company was losing its marketing edge as a new generation of digital marketers were taking the lead. To adapt its marketing for the digital age, it began to engage with early-stage companies that could bring new insights and innovation to the soft-drink maker. The company partnered with Highland Capital Partners, a venture capital firm, to run the PepsiCo10 competition. Startups were invited to submit pilot projects to run with Pepsi, and the winners were paired with mentors and partners to execute them.

Laurence Garrett of Highland Capital Partners, who ran PepsiCo10 in 2011, focusing on European startups, is now part of the Irish Times Digital Challenge.

“We see Ireland as a core European hub of innovation with a truly skilled population and an ecosystem that has Facebook, Google, Intel, etc, he said. “As technology investors we are delighted to help with the Irish Times Digital Challenge.”

The Irish Times will not take any equity in participants’ businesses as part of the Digital Challenge. The primary purpose is to build strong and mutually beneficial relationships between The Irish Times and emerging digital businesses.

The judging panel will include Laurence Garrett of Highland Capital Partners;

Shay Garvey of Delta Partners; Eamon Leonard of EngineYard; Gary Leyden of NDRC LaunchPad; John O’Sullivan of ACT Venture Capital; Sean O’Sullivan of Rococo; Kevin O’Sullivan, editor of The Irish Times, and senior managers at The Irish Times. The panel will be chaired by Brian Caufield. He believes that now is a great time to be a startup.

“A vibrant startup culture in pursuit of a market experiencing major disruption is a recipe for entrepreneurial success, and has produced many of the iconic companies of recent years such as Google, Apple and Amazon,” he said.

Johnny Ryan is chief innovation officer at The Irish Times.Twitter @johnnyryan

The small print

The Irish Times Digital Challenge is geared to products or services that are ready-to-go.

Entries should be up and running and ready for business application by the deadline (June 1st, 2012).

There should not be significant costs to The Irish Times for implementing the product or system.

The solution should be directly applicable to one or more of the following suggested areas.

MOBILE – ON SMARTPHONES, TABLETS AND BEYOND

Example: a service or product to improve content delivery and reader engagement

NEWS CURATION

Example: Tools to find and deliver the best and most compelling news and information, or location-based solutions that redefine how news stories are told and experienced

SOCIAL MEDIA

Example: a solution that forms active communities around areas of content, or adds value to readers social media experience

DATA

Example: Easy-to-use data journalism tools to gather, interrogate or visualise data

ADVERTISING COMMERCIAL

Example: Easy-to-use tools to insert pre-roll advertising, or a product or service that may be of interest to members of the diaspora, or that would better connect the diaspora

TO APPLY

Visit irishtimesidealab.com. It is recommended that you register your interest on the website in advance of the entry deadline