`More people want to be employers'

Low inflation, low interest rates and relatively easy access to capital has made more and more people willing to risk setting up their own companies. Last year, about 16,700 businesses were formed, up from around 16,000 the year before, according to Pat Delaney, director of the Small Firms Association.

These new entrepreneurs may not yet have the international profile of Richard Branson, Bill Gates or Anita Roddick but increasingly they are making their mark on the Irish and sometimes further afield.

"We are seeing a huge cultural change in Ireland and it's that cultural change that is driving it," says Mr Delaney. "More people want to be employers rather than employees and success is encouraged now in a way it wasn't in the past."

Budding entrepreneurs - of any age - can avail of a range of grants, advisory services and other supports from their county enterprise boards, local area partnerships or, if they live in the Gaeltacht region, Udaras na Gaeltachta. Venture capital funds and bank loans are also more easily available.

Last year, venture capital funds pumped £12 million into new businesses. Most went to provide start-up and early-stage financing, and more than half was targeted at software projects, according to Richard Pollard, manager of industrial high-potential start-ups with Enterprise Ireland.

Increasingly, Enterprise Ireland will focus on ventures with high growth and high export potential in a bid to nurture the next generation of successful start-ups, Mr Pollard says.

"Twenty years ago, companies like Trintech, Baltimore Technologies, Trinity Biotech, Iona and CBT didn't exist. Now, they're well known and trading internationally," he says. "They provide a shining example of what can be achieved."

According to Mr Pollard, a successful venture is one with adequate funding, a strong management team containing a mix of technical and commercial competencies, a focus on a growth sector or a growth segment within a traditional sector and some form of competitive advantage. The company must also have an unwavering customer focus, tight cash-flow and information management systems, an ability to internationalise rapidly and continue to innovate.

One such company is MDS, a leader in supplying small ISDN systems and other communications products for residential and small business customers. Co-founded by engineer Declan Gibbons in 1987, MDS has focused successfully on the high-tech, fast-changing computer telephony market. Annual sales have risen from £1 million in 1990 when the first products appeared to £15 million today, mostly in exports.

"MDS as a name wouldn't be recognised outside the industry but essentially we are providing the products that allow faster access to the Internet and the opportunities for a company like us are massive," says Mr Gibbons.

In an industry where constant innovation is the key to success, the only limitation to MDS's growth is the ability to attract skilled engineers and develop products, he says. Some 30 of its 95 staff work exclusively in research and development and MDS wants to boost that by an additional 20 this year.

Another company targeting the computer telephony market is Phonenet, which provides out sourced telemarketing services to companies on a contract basis.

Karl Llewellyn started Phonenet in 1996 in the windowless basement of a serviced office building in Dame Street, Dublin. "All I had was a phone, a desk and the Golden Pages," he recalls. He now employs 20 people at offices in Sandyford, with turnover doubling in the last year.

Mr Llewellyn got the idea for Phonenet during the five years he spent travelling and working his way around the world. "When I saw what was happening with phone and computer integration I realised that this was the way of the future," he says. "If you were going out to meet clients or customers, you might get through eight in a day. With a phone, you could do 40-50."

Phonenet's telemarketing services include lead generation, appointment setting, seasonal selling, customer research and data verification. A start-up company, for example, might use Phonenet to test market its product. Or a business that wanted to do update its customer database might outsource the project to Phonenet rather than tie up its own staff on time-consuming phone calls.

He has also tapped into the large pool of women interested in working part-time from home and linking them via phone and computer with head office. By so doing, he has cut his costs and developed an off-shoot business recruiting teleworkers and creating "virtual" call centres for clients.

"Entrepreneurs are the modern adventurers," says Mr Delaney. "In the past they would have gone to search out new continents or fight wars. But all the world has been discovered and the wars fought, so now business tends to be the attraction."

With access to venture capital and with the example of other successful start-ups to guide them, more people will - and should - be encouraged to set up their own companies, says Mr Gibbons.

"The entrepreneurial spirit has always been there but now that the fire is roaring, we need to add more flames to keep it going."