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Sport and fitness take centre stage at the Three Grants for Small Businesses Awards

A conversation with female friends prompted Donegal native Megan White to set up Runsafe. A cash injection from Three Ireland helped it speed to market

Megan White’s Runsafe vest helps solo runners be seen while its accompanying app works like a dashcam for runners, using the camera on your smart phone incorporated securely into a stabilising pouch.

Fri Sep 15 2023 - 05:00

Each year Three Ireland’s Grants for Small Businesses programme awards 10 small businesses a prize that combines cash and connectivity solutions. Worth a total of €10,000 it comprises €5,000 in cash and the balance in broadband, telephone services and business advice.

Winning one last year helped Donegal woman Megan White pick up the pace with her start-up Runsafe. Fittingly, it was a need for connectivity that inspired it.

White studied art and graphic design at college before moving into sales and marketing in the tourism sector. She is also a runner.

“I’m a basic runner, a 5km person, not an ultramarathoner. I walk the dog and I run,” she explains.

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Padraig Sheerin, Three Ireland’s head of SME, and Runsafe founder Meghan White pictured in Dublin at the launch of the award winners

In January 2022 she was on holidays with a group of friends and wanted to keep her steps up.

“Every morning I’d head out of our apartment, turn right, and go for my run. It was my daily routine and all my friends on holiday with me knew that. But one day I headed out and turned left instead, just for a change,” she recalls.

It was a mistake.

“I ended up somewhere that wasn’t touristy at all. It was a lot more isolated and I didn’t feel safe,” she says.

“I didn’t want to take my phone out to let my friends know where I was because it’s always better to look confident and like you know where you are going.”

The experience prompted a discussion when she got back to the apartment.

“I asked the girls if something had happened to me, where would they have gone to look for me. They all said they’d go out of the apartment and turn right,” she says.

She began searching online for a product that would have flagged her route for them in real time, and which would have notified them if she had needed help. She couldn’t find one.

“So I started thinking, a bit naively, how hard would it be to create an app myself?” she says.

She was off.

“I started talking to fellow runners and finding out what kind of features such an app would need to make them feel safer. Then I talked to app developers about building it,” says White.

One developer suggested she enrol in New Frontiers, a start-up programme run by Enterprise Ireland.

Keeping an eye on the ball and the bottom line.

The Runsafe app allows you to film and map your run and inform one of your emergency contacts of expected duration, return time as well as having an emergency call location

While participating in the course she developed a two-fold product.

“I wanted a running vest to help me be seen, plus an app that works like a dashcam for runners, using the camera on your smartphone incorporated securely into a stabilising pouch,” says White.

The app provides GPS location, a lives-tream with video and sound, plus all the run tracking stats that runners love, such as speed and distance.

“I want Runsafe to be so well marketed that people will see the vest and immediately know the runner is live-streaming,” she explains.

She believes it will be of particular relevance to women.

Research from Adidas suggests 92 per cent of women are concerned for their safety when they go for a run.

“In winter women run less because it’s dark. They go to the gym instead, while men just lace up their shoes and off they go,” she says.

White recently developed her second prototype, an enhanced version of the original vest with a panic button that instantly notifies your chosen contacts.

“The button can also be detached and clipped on to the waistband of your jeans if you are going on a Tinder date or just going to the supermarket late at night,” says White.

The Three Ireland Small Businesses Grant came at just the right time in her journey.

Start-up using data to tackle the complicated process of concussion.

The cash injection of the Three award helped fund her second prototype, pictured, which includes a removable panic button

“I was able to put the €5,000 cash element into developing the second prototype, with the removable panic button, plus app development and branding. That helped us come up with our tag line, ‘run safe run smart’, to reflect the fact that it is a connected device,” she says.

She used the other €5,000 for mobile services and, when she opens her office later this year, for broadband.

“When you are starting out, every euro helps. The money from Three helped us unlock matched funding from our Local Enterprise Office too,” she says.

But it’s about more than money.

“To have a business like Three say ‘we like your idea’ is hugely encouraging. After all, I started out with a scissors, masking tape and a hi-vis jacket. Funding from Three pushed us forward to become a sports tech business,” she adds.

It’s about support.

“Three has been so supportive, putting us in newspapers and on radio, opening those doors for us so that more people can hear our story,” says White.

“When we show our prototype, including to investors, being able to say Three supports us gets people’s interest. They immediately sit up and take note. And as a result, we are going to be able to help so many women go for a run because they feel safer to do so.” runsafe.ie

Three’s Grants for Small Businesses 2023 programme is now taking applications until Monday October 2nd. Find out more at 3.ie/grants

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