NEW SERIES: STARTING OFF

In our new series we will look at the progress of a start-up from idea to a functioning business. This month Pat Lucey, managing director of AspiraCon Ltd, explains where he got the idea for his business and how he went about making his dream come true

When Motorola closed its plant in Cork, more than 300 people lost their jobs. Among them were Pat Lucey and Colum Horgan. Lucey had spent 17 years with the company, working in a variety of roles.

"My initial reaction once I got over the shock was I didn't want to go back into the same type of job again. I want to take this chance to do something different, to do something for myself," he says.

Both Lucey and Horgan had worked as project managers on a number of major jobs for Motorola and they used this experience to start up their own business.

Lucey had an idea for an estimation software tool that would help firms estimate project size and duration.

"We had worked on similar type problems in Motorola," he says.

When Motorola closed, a number of State agencies such as Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland and Fás worked to try to find new jobs for the workers.

Lucey and Horgan were impressed with Enterprise Ireland and arranged a second meeting to flesh out their business idea. The State agency agreed to part-fund a feasibility study. "We quickly moved from emptying our desks to going out and doing a feasibility study into our own ideas for new products," says Lucey.

The feasibility study proved to be a real eye-opener.

"We went out and talked to a bunch of companies to see would they be interested and the reaction was typically 'that sounds good but we have more basic problems such as we are missing our deliveries, we can't manage risk'," says Lucey.

To see your idea more or less rejected can be a bitter blow, but Lucy didn't view it that way.

"When it became apparent that people thought it was interesting but weren't prepared to pay for it, my reaction was 'thank god we didn't go for it and sink our money into building this.' Instead let's put our money into something we know that people will pay us to do."

They were forced to do a rethink on their idea for their company AspiraCon.

"A lot of people get wedded to one particular idea," says Lucey.

"It would be great if that idea was a winner but you also have to be able to recognise when you are backing a loser and be prepared to shift or at least tweak your offering."

From their own experience and research, they realised that companies were looking for something to help take the chaos out of project management.

"We have built a project management collaboration set of tools that gives you much better control of your risks and visibility.

"We have built a web-based system to let everybody see who's doing what and see what is coming down the line."

Lucey describes the feasibility study and grant aid from Enterprise Ireland as akin to a hothouse that allowed them to cultivate their idea. He also speaks highly of the Enterprise Start programme run by Enterprise Ireland.

Neither Horgan nor Lucey had run their own business before and the programme allowed them to deal with business start-up issues they had never encountered before, as well as providing advice from successful entrepreneurs.

"It covered a lot of the basics at the time when we needed it," says Lucey. "Neither Colum nor I are finance people.

"It went through the basics of setting up a financial system and we brought in somebody from the Companies Registration Office to explain the requirements of being a director," he says.

Next month: We look at the challenges that faced AspiraCon Ltd