Dublin City Enterprise News Talks To...... Kate Cronin
To celebrate Year of Craft 2011, we talk to Kate Cronin of Klickity, an award-winning product design company, specialising in lighting and greeting cards. Kate set up the business in January 2010 with her business partner, Elizabeth Fingleton.
At Showcase Ireland at the RDS last month, Klickity won the ‘Best New Product’ award in the tabletop and interiors category for the Palm lampshade.
About Kate....
Kate Cronin is an industrial design graduate from NCAD. She spent two years working as a packaging designer in a London based firm before returning home to set up Klickity, a product design company. Kate (pictured on the right) along with her business partner Elizabeth Fingleton (pictured on the left) recently took part in Showcase in the RDS with the support of Dublin City Enterprise Board.
Why did you decide to set up your own craft business & how did you go about it?
After returning to Ireland from the UK, there were very few design jobs available. So I decided to set up my own design company. The first step was to get a website together which gives you instant presence, then I went round to shops to see if they were interested in any of the products I had to offer.
What assistance or advice have you received from family, friends and state support agencies?
I received lots of design critiquing from friends and family, which is really important when you are developing a product. I also depend on retailers to give product feedback and consumer feedback in order to find out if I need to change or tweak my designs. We have received business support and mentoring in the weeks prior to Showcase from the Dublin City Enterprise Board and hope to now enter their full time mentoring programme. We have also received support from the Crafts Council of Ireland.
What valuable lessons about running a business have you learned in the early days?
Get your costings right from the start, make sure you are profiting from each product you make. Also be ready to drop a product/design if it is not working, otherwise it is just costing you money. And finally, don’t be afraid to bargain with producers, suppliers and manufacturers - everything is negotiable.
What is the best thing/worst thing about being your own boss, so far?
The best thing is definitely the satisfaction of seeing one of your products in a shop or in a magazine and getting positive feedback. The hardest aspect of being your own boss is managing your time and the constant feeling of their not being enough hours in the day.
In 5 years time?
I see myself still based in Dublin, designing and making my own products. I would like to break into the UK market and hopefully employ some emerging product designers in order to expand the Klickity range.
Would you do anything differently during the start-up phase?
No, I think you need to make all the mistakes and learn from them.
What entrepreneur do you admire, and why?
Alexa Byrne, from A.Rubanesque in the Powerscourt Townhouse.
Alexa is a textile graduate from NCAD who opened a ribbon shop, her sense of business combined with her creativitiy has created a beautiful retail space and shopping experience. Alexa has also just produced her first (of many) range of ribbon.
Thank you to Kate Cronin for taking part in our interview. We’d also like to take this opportunity to congratulate Klickity on winning the ‘Best New Product’ Award at Showcase!
For more information about Klickity, visit www.klickity.ie.
To contact Kate, call 087 9662167 or e-mail: Kate@klickity.ie