Think Efficient

The media is modern and must have. It’s also something of a bear pit when it comes to competition. The good survive; the very good prosper. We’re talking strategic website development and online marketing and a success story called Red Sky.

What makes people with secure, highly paid jobs leave comfort behind and risk everything? There are probably as many answers as there are entrepreneurs. One thing is certain: They are driven. Red Sky’s Managing Director is a good example. With a Bachelor of Science from UCD, a Masters in Interactive Media from DIT and a Diploma in Business Development from the same college, Keelan Cunningham was Website Development Manager for Independent News & Media in 2001 when he decided to leave the comfort zone and set up Red Sky. Six years later, he employs ten people and boasts such clients as AIB Bank, VHI health insurance and Dublin Airport Authority.

“People said I was crazy,” recalls Cunningham remembering the solitary early days. Nor were things made any easier by his determination only to accept clients with equally serious intentions for their websites. “Most businesses now recognise that an effective website can have a real impact on the business. The days of spending 10K on a website and hoping to become a dot.com millionaire are thankfully over. We've turned some companies around from loss-making online ventures into profitable, effective online ventures. The key is to have clearly defined goals and then match your expectations and budget so that your website will achieve what you want it to achieve. There's little point in spending 20k and expecting to be the next Amazon or something. That's just unrealistic. What Red Sky does is work out exactly what results a business wants from their website we will then put in place a web business plan to ensure that this is achieved” says Cunningham.

The desire to provide businesses with really effective ‘business’ websites was Cunningham’s motivation for setting up Red Sky. Cunningham himself conducts one-on-one dedicated web strategy workshops with some of Irelands leading e-business website owners “Our approach is unique. We want our clients to get results online. We want our clients to have a strategic plan of action for their website. We will actually draft an online business plan for them complete with revenue streams, customer satisfaction indicators, key milestones etc. Taking this approach and ensuring that the purpose of the site is fully thought through and that it is an effective and efficient part of the client’s information and eCommerce strategy results in effective websites and happy clients as expectations have been met,” he insists. “Good companies appreciate that.” A message for start ups Red Sky’s start up was less fraught than many; a fact that Cunningham attributes to the fact that he had realistic expectations and had studied business in addition to his professional qualifications. He started as a registered sole trader and financed the operation with his own money and bank borrowings. He also received mentoring from Dublin City Enterprise Board, that he found a big help and got an got an employment grant that he says gave him a good head start. He formed a company in 2003 and started to encounter the challenges of managing staff and managing growth. Conscious of the benefit of his own business training, Keelan Cunningham believes that his experience has something to offer to other start up and growing companies.

“Skill yourself in business and managing, get training” he advises. According to Cunningham, other areas of vital importance to start-ups are selling skills, raising capital and networking or what he calls “one-on-one marketing”, as well as having a clear understanding of whether you are service or product based company. “You have got to get out and sell, get clients. Raising sufficient capital is very important. Using the services of agencies such as Dublin City Enterprise Board or getting involved in the Enterprise Ireland backed Hothouse programme, as I did can be a great help. Above all be goal oriented. Write down your goals for the different areas of your business and stick them up on the wall or even on your PCs desktop. Research conducted at Harvard Business School shows that people with written goals are far more likely to be successful than those without” Preference share investment from DCEB The success of Red Sky has not gone unnoticed to the extent that DCEB took a €75,000 investment in the company by way of Preference Shares. The company will use this money as working capital finance, for marketing and staffing. “It is very cheap finance with a two year moratorium on repayment and certainly makes us very comfortable looking forward.” And what does the future hold for Red Sky? A future of great opportunity would appear to be the answer.

According to Cunningham, there is a great deal of growth left in the domestic website market. “E-Business and Internet usage is still underdeveloped here by comparison to most other developed countries. This is going to change, especially as broadband becomes more available and used. We intend to maintain our fast growth rate, consolidating and improving our position as a strategic website development and online marketing business that enables our clients to do more business online. We have begun to see the SME market actually go beyond having a website and using the web channel as a business enabler i.e. streamlining data capture and storage, communicating more effectively with customers, integrating the web channel with internal business processes etc. This is where the web can have an amazing impact on a business. ” Cunningham is also sanguine as to the Dublin business environment. “Dublin is a business friendly city and we Irish are enterprising and astute though sometimes we procrastinate too much on decision making!”

© Dublin City Enterprise Board 2007. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or part without the permission from the D.C.E.B.

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