The startup ecosystem in Ireland is evolving and gathering pace. The number of startup accelerator programs in the country along with a continued support from the government towards this sector emphasises the potential and steady growth.

Dogpatch Labs , in particular, have been supporting startups. This Dublin City centre based startup hub has brought about lot of initiatives in this regard. One of the latest and most innovative of them is the founders program. However, the recent ‘Join a Startup’ event conducted by NDRC, powered by Dogpatch Labs, was one of its kind.

Join a Startup event took place on the 26th of May, 2023 at the Dogpatch Labs’ famous vault venue. Lorraine, the programme manager of NDRC accelerator which is powered by Dogpatch Labs, spearheaded this initiative supported by the ever enthusiastic members at this startup hub.

This event was conducted with a focus to support Women lead startups and also to give a chance to talents available in the market. In one of the recent surveys, it was found that Women lead startups are finding it difficult to attract and retain talents. Keeping this in mind, NDRC decided to bring together these startup founders and aspiring talents under one roof.

Speed dating in a new avatar took place at the vault venue. The event kicked off by 10 am with the programme manager briefing the founders and talents about the whole thought process of this event and how it will be managed for the next couple of hours. After the initial brief, startup founders were moved to a break away room. Lizzy, Community Director, Dogpatch Labs gave a 20 minutes presentation about how, why and who should be scouted as their talents. At the same time, Emily, Founders program manager at Dogpatch Labs shared the opportunities available on that day and others that are available at Dogpatch Labs, with the aspiring talents. The talents were given a chance to prepare a self 2 minute pitch. They tried to pitch themselves to their fellow aspirants and took feedback of what might go well and wrong. This actually helped and also worked as an ice breaking session.

The ‘speed dating’ started by around 11:30 am. The talents were divided in to tech, operations, sales & marketing, others. They were made to sit in separate break out rooms. The founders then visited each room to talk to the talents and understand more about them. This was more like a pre seed investment , of the talent hunt. A pre seed type of a casual talk to understand more about the talent and what they can be bring on board. Keeping in mind the time constraints, some of the founders tried talking to 3-4 talents at the same time , so they could save time talking about their startup.

The event saw participation from around 40+ startups and 50+ talents. The link of the websites of each startup, the Linkedin profile of the founders and the Linkedin profile of talents were made available to everyone one day in advance, so that everyone can prepare, plan and target their exact requirements.

‘Join a startup’ program was interactive and unique in its own way. I managed to talk to 5 startup founders and made connections with 10+ talents. The discussions were really good. The talents and the founders brain picked each other in the pursuit of finding the right match.

The startups who participated are in the various stages of their journey, some are at a nascent stage while a handful of them have moved to the seed level investments. The women entrepreneurs that I could interact had great stories and ideas. These include oogo piccolo, She Matters, Find A Creche, Laser Printer Treatment, and ShareClub. The ones that I had in mind but could not get an opportunity to interact were Huggnote, Precision Sports Technology.

I am sure many of the talents would have received a follow up meeting request by now or maybe by end of this week, considering many startups might be busy with the Dublin Tech Summit event.

The work done by NDRC , Dogpatch labs has to be appreciated. The people behind this would have discussed and debated a lot before launching an event like this. Hope this will be a successful one, though the success could be measured maybe 2 months down the line. However , the networking opportunity has been great and many participants will be happy to have at least made connections.

Another interesting program launched by Dogpatch Labs is the Founders program, where they are going to support 40-45 individuals to come together and build startups from scratch. The individuals will be given a chance to team up and make startups / ideations, with an aim to have at least 16-18 pitches. The program is aiming to fund 7-8 startups at the end of this program. This program will be run for a duration of 3 months from Sep 2023 onwards, a full time stipend (200 Euros) paid engagement activity to bring out the best in each individual and also to help find the right resourceful partner to take the ideas / startups to the next level.

Dogpatch Labs also gives a platform to young minds to showcase their business acumen, via a program called Patch. My personal favourite is First Fridays for Startups , a great program which helps to get your month started in the right note, if you are interested to keep a tab about the startups.

I am sure , the work will be already going on to enhance each of these programs and also to launch more innovative ones like the ‘speed dating’. The match making has to happen for the right idea and startups to get going and I am sure programs like this are going to be a great launch pad for founders as well as talents.