Entrepreneur follows beacons of fun and profit

Success has come early for John Beckett. The 25-year-old founder and managing director of Adrenalin Internet Systems has a growing software development company whose client base includes Ryanair.

Now he is leading his company into new areas. Last year, Adrenalin Internet Systems launched a biometric program that tracks attendance.

TruancyGuard, which was installed at St Andrew's College in Dublin last May, monitors attendance by scanning a student's finger as he or she enters school. When a student fails to show up for class, a text message is sent to the offender's parents.

The cost for the system depends on the size of the student body. Dublin-based Adrenalin suggests one unit per 50 students and each unit costs about €1,000. The system is already being used at other schools and businesses.

TruancyGuard, however, is just one of Beckett's ventures. "The thought of waking up and having one job to do is a complete nightmare," Beckett told a group of students at a recent Nova UCD entrepreneurship seminar.

Before jumping into a new venture, he says he asks himself two questions - will it make a profit and will it be fun? "I hate being stuck doing the same boring thing," Beckett reiterated and added that he wouldn't settle into any one business.

At eight years old, Beckett sold handmade magazines and at 13 he was buying computer parts from the UK to sell to his family and friends. When he turned 14 he started working in an internet café in Temple Bar and, by 16, he was a member of Gateway's tech support department.

"Ever since I was a kid, I'd sit on my bed thinking up ways to make money," Beckett said.

Adrenalin took shape during his fourth year as part of a mini-company project for his business class. The project failed because of an accounting error, but Beckett continued designing websites for local businesses.

His young age didn't stop him from finding customers. "I don't look particularly old and you can imagine what I looked like when I was 17," he said. But companies took him seriously because he was confident and because of his business plans, he added.

He told the students that one of the key issues for any entrepreneur was to "believe in what you're selling".

While he was still in secondary school, Ryanair approached him to design its initial website.

"I knew John from a work placement he had completed in Gateway," Eddie Wilson, Ryanair's director of personnel and in-flight services, said. "He did an excellent job, although he had other pressures at the time, and the website's initial launch had to be delayed while he sat his mock Leaving Cert Geography exam."

The website debuted in January 2000. Within three months 50,000 bookings a week were being sold through the website. According to the airline, almost 98 per cent of Ryanair's bookings now go through a modified version of the website.

"Ryanair served as our big break," Beckett recalled. Adrenalin subsequently expanded its operations into Malaysia, where the company outsources its software development.

He also began consulting the governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Oman on how to use IT technology to build a tourism industry.

In 2003, he started BuyIreland.com, which sells "novelty gifts" of one square-foot chunks of land from a plot in Co Roscommon for $49.99 (€40). The website has sold almost 1,300 plots and "runs itself", he added.

His next step is to set up a new company to take over TruancyGuard and other biometric applications. Adrenalin will go back to its software development core.

With almost 60 employees, Adrenalin's sales are expected to reach €500,000 this year and are forecast to double the following year. In 2005, TruancyGuard accounted for €100,000 in company sales, according to Beckett.

He hopes to expand the system further into the UK and eventually into the US where "security concerns over the last five years have increased dramatically".

At the moment, there is only one other company in the US using biometric technology to track attendance, he says, leaving an inviting window for any aspiring entrepreneur.