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Attending February’s First Fridays for Startups!

First Fridays for Startups is back for 2021 and we were delighted to attend this month’s event held on February 5th! 

The event was hosted by Dogpatch Labs, a hub for Irish startups based in the Dublin Digital Docklands. The day consisted of zoom meetings, breakout rooms, and live streaming.

Photograph shows two hosts of Dogpatch labs, with mics and holding flashcards, standing in front of a large screen

Here’s what we got up to!

The opening session ‘Welcome to Ireland’s Startup Ecosystem’ was broadcasted live to attendees tuning in from their homes. We spent time in breakout rooms, networking with like-minded people and of course, learning about each other’s companies and businesses.

One on One Mentoring

After the opening session, attendees were paired with mentors in two 20 minute 1 on 1 sessions. For us, Renee from our marketing team met with Guarav Pathek from Google, who specialises in business development and go-to market strategy. Renee got the opportunity to share our marketing plan as an EdTech start-up and ask questions about content strategies surrounding our company’s website and social platforms. 

The second meeting included a 1 on 1 session with Julio Hansoul, also from Google, who specialises in  sales and go – to market strategies. Julio gave insights on growing exponentially, knowing where the customers are and creating specific targeting messaging.

Fireside Chat with Patricia Scanlon

This ‘From Lab to Living Room’ live stream featured Patricia Scanlon. Patricia shared her insights from commercialising products and fundraising for SoapBox Labs. The inspiring session gave an insight into how Patricia built groundbreaking, research-led AI leveraging Irish universities and the Irish R&D ecosystem.

Educate with Daire Hickey

Titled ‘Rules to Live by for Startup PR’, this 50 minute session really gave us some concrete rules for telling your company’s story and vision. Daire Hickey, founder of 150Bond, gave words of advice for preparing a press release, pitching to journalists, and creating a voice for your company. Daire’s top tip: cold emails – do it!

Here are some tweets from the event:

Tweet from Dogpatch labs, "What a way to kick of #FirstFridays 2021, From LA to Japan, from Ballina to Bantry, over 370 of you tuned into our live sessions in Dogpatch studios to be welcomes, mentored, educated & inspired by world-class speakers and mentors today. "
Tweet from Brickfield Education Labs "We are delighted to be attending dogpatchlabs first Fridays for start ups today, looking forward to the next session "rules to live by for start up PR" with added image of Paddy Flynn, VP Geo Data Operations

It was a great introduction to Dogpatch Labs’ First Fridays. Our highlight? Probably networking with like-minded people and diving into an ecosystem of exciting Irish start-ups.

Looking forward to future First Friday events! Great work, Dogpatch Labs!