Startups

Skytango is an online platform for the buying and selling of drone video footage. Irish woman Susan Flynn is Skytango’s chief operating officer. Her husband Steve, from Minnesota, is its chief executive, a job he’s been preparing for since he was seven years old: “Back in the day, you’d spend three months building a balsa wood and styrofoam airplane and it would take-off and you might have a thirty-second flight and it would explode into pieces, and you’d go back and work for three months to rebuild it. Now you can pull a drone out of a box and launch it, and it’s re

“So your bar is there. You have to have that and give me an appraisal,” says Clare. “You can be honest,” she adds. That’s a terrible idea, Clare, I think to myself. I‘m a hopeless chocolate snob. ‘Dairy-free milk chocolate’? How is that even possible? As Clare herself admits, when you say the word vegan, people assume it’s going to be horrible. She reckons that they’re thinking: ‘Oh my God, it probably tastes like sawdust!’ But guess what? This Chocolatey Clare Salted Peanut bar tastes great. It’s not too sweet and icky like lots of non-milk milk chocolate. Not too pale and wishy-washy. This milk chocolate has a he

Sustainable, ethical clothing designed in Dublin Grown Clothing is a Dublin startup that prints beautiful, simple designs on ethically-sourced, environmentally-friendly shirts and t-shirts. Its origins lie in conversations between three friends as they journeyed back and forth between Dublin and the West of Ireland, on swimming, surfing and scuba-diving trips. What inspired this sustainable startup? The ocean-loving friends were Neil McCabe, Stephen O’Reilly and Damien Bligh. They often noticed rubbish in the water and on the beaches they explored. This made them think about the ecological impact of plastics and modern fabrics – and how we pr

There are literally hundreds of young entrepreneurs launching their startups in Dublin, hoping to climb the precarious ladder in the tech, food and pharma sectors. Many of these companies will go on to achieve greatness; some will be quietly successful; others will become well-known names across the globe. Others, sadly, will perish under the immense pressure of starting a company from scratch. Dublin.ie caught up with one of the city’s successful startup founders, Jack Kirwan – pi

Dublin company Nobó launched its ‘Frozen Goodness’ dairy-free and gluten-free ice-cream almost ten years ago. Since then, it’s won a bunch of prestigious awards and is distributed nationwide. You’ll also find it in stores across the UK, at a handful of Canadian markets and in Kibsons in Dubai. A few years into their startup journey, Dublin.ie spoke to the husband and wife team behind the Nobó brand – Rachel and Brian Nolan. Here’s what they had to say about their startup experience. Innovating an age-old cuisine Nobó isn’t just a marketing gimmick. Its recipes are a real innovation. “Definitely, it is in terms of the ing

Creating an immersive English language course Travelling Languages is a Dublin-based language school, which helps English and Italian language learners quickly improve their proficiency. By combining lessons with tourist activities, Travelling Languages creates a completely immersive language programme. These experiences help students master the language and enjoy unique experiences. We chatted with founders Salvatore Fanara and Rosanna Fiorenza about starting their innovative business. But first, romance. From Turin to Dublin He was an engineer from southern Sicily. She was a banker from Turin. It was 2006. “We met in Turin a few weeks

In that famous TV ad for Donegal Catch, the hapless trawlerman’s recipe ideas are kept “on file… In a filing cabinet”. And that’s exactly where they’re going to stay. It was the realisation that so many CVs suffer a similar fate that got Stephen Quinn wondering if there was a better way to organise the world of recruitment – and, as he puts it, “bring an old-world industry to life”. In conversation with Jobbio’s Stephen Quinn Stephen is the CEO of recruitment platform Jobbio. He established the company with his brother John Quinn back