O’Brien is very keen to break into the European market where better weather would offset some of the seasonality of the products

SAM FARRELLY’S father was a pharmacist and an award-winning vegetable grower. He attributed his success with the soil to following old-fashioned methods of feeding and pest control. He was essentially an organic grower long before the term became trendy and spent hours making up his own bug repellents and fertilisers from ancient gardening books with yellowed pages.

To a certain extent, Farrelly followed in his father’s footsteps by becoming a chemist. He then went to work for a large chemical company in Germany and gave little thought to natural remedies until after his father’s death. When he was clearing out the old potting shed, Farrelly found notebooks filled with his father’s “recipes” for everything from a beeswax-based furniture polish to a natural paste for cleaning ironwork.

He put the notebooks to one side for safekeeping and more or less forgot about their contents until several years later when he was giving his barbecue its pre-summer season clean and found himself choking on the fumes of a heavy-duty cleaner. He rooted out the old notebooks and, after a bit of a search, tracked down the ingredients to make the cleaning paste. It worked like a dream.

There was no overpowering smell or sticky residue and the barbecue looked like new. Farrelly made up more of the paste and asked family and friends to try it out. Their reactions were uniformly positive. Farrelly began to see the possibilities of turning the paste into a commercially viable product.

In his spare time he began working on refining the formula and subsequently sent the product for rigorous scientific testing at a private laboratory. This was an expensive but necessary step in the commercialisation chain. Over the next 18 months, he worked on six potential products from his father’s notebooks – three for organic gardeners and three environmentally friendly cleaning products, including the barbecue paste and products for cleaning decking and exterior paving.

Farrelly decided to quit his well-paid job in Germany to become an entrepreneur, a decision that filled him with a mixture of excitement and fear. He decided that, if he was going to risk everything, he would do so back in Ireland with his family nearby for moral support.

Before leaving his job, he identified a suitable location and premises in Ireland for his new business and submitted a business plan to his local Enterprise Board. Encouraged by their willingness to support him, Farrelly handed in his notice and came home.

His timing was good. The “green” message was being pushed at consumers from every angle and Farrelly was able to piggyback on the momentum. His products were not cheap, but they worked and, once consumers realised this they came back for more. The most successful product was the barbecue paste, which tended to be bought mainly by men who proved a lot less price sensitive than women. The decking and stone cleaning products also tended to be bought more by men than women with similar implications for the pricing.

With no experience of the retail trade, Farrelly decided not to waste time trying to acquire it. He joined two business associations and through them identified two people working freelance who had the sort of retail and hardware sales experience he needed. He approached both and offered them six-month assignments with the company to develop two sales channels covering the multiple and independent retailers respectively. This left Farrelly free to oversee production.

He had spent a big chunk of his startup capital buying equipment that provided a high level of automation, and was able to run the business with three production staff. The fact that the market for garden cleaning products was seasonal also allowed the company to build stock during the winter months, so production remained at a constant level throughout the year.

At the end of the six-month assignment period one of the consultants moved on, but the other, Jim O’Brien, stayed and subsequently became the company’s sales manager. Farrelly was not in a position to pay him the sort of salary he was used to but offered a small shareholding in the company as an incentive and this was accepted.

Farrelly and O’Brien are opposites in terms of personality but get on extremely well. Farrelly is conservative and only comfortable with calculated risk. O’Brien tends to see the big picture and will take chances based on gut instinct. Over the years, this combination of caution and flair has served the company well.

When the three products had been successfully launched, Farrelly turned his attention to commercialising his trio of products for the organic gardener.

This proved a more difficult market to crack as there was more competition in this sector and margins were that much tighter. What gave Farrelly’s products their edge, however, was their easy-to-use dispensing mechanisms and all-natural ingredients, while the packaging also emphasised their pet and wildlife-friendly status.

Since the formation of the company just over a decade ago, sales have grown steadily and the company now has a foothold in 26 counties with both its cleaning and gardening products.

Five years after he had started his new business, Farrelly’s mother died and he inherited money from her estate. Around the time, his landlord decided to put the unit Farrelly was renting (as well as an adjoining property) up for sale. With an eye on investing for his future, Farrelly used his inheritance and a bank loan to buy both units. He sublet the second unit.

A year ago his tenant went out of business and the unit has since been empty. Even a substantially reduced rent has failed to attract interest. Initially, Farrelly wasn’t unduly bothered as he assumed it would eventually rent, but it is now clear that this is unlikely and he is getting a little edgy.

O’Brien’s view is that the empty unit represents a golden opportunity for the company to expand. He is very keen to break into the European market, where better weather would offset some of the seasonal nature of the products. In addition to this, the recession has seen a number of the company’s competitors either retrench or go out of business.

O’Brien is fired up by the possibility of mopping up the available business. He also thinks the company needs to expand its product line-up to reduce seasonal dependence and knows Farrelly has a long list of potential products that have yet to see the light of day.

He has pitched his case to Farrelly, who can see merit in all aspects of the plan. The business is financially sound with money in the bank to fund an expansion and its sales have not been adversely affected by the downturn. In fact the company has seen continuing growth over the past two years. But Farrelly is seriously concerned about taking such a big step. His biggest fear is that things could easily go pear-shaped, and that everything would be lost.

He appreciates O’Brien’s energy and commitment and doesn’t want to dampen his enthusiasm completely so as a compromise has suggested they start by testing the UK market, possibly through Northern Ireland which the company’s existing distributors could easily cover.

If the products find a receptive market in the six counties, Farrelly thinks the next step should be the UK mainland. Farrelly’s views are shared by the company’s bank manager who thinks O’Brien’s development plan is too ambitious in the current climate.

O’Brien thinks both are being overly conservative and is not at all enthused at the prospect of sterling exposure. His view is that a foray into Europe would make a lot more sense. O’Brien is chomping at the bit, but Farrelly is paralysed by the choices facing him and is completely torn between retaining the status quo or seizing the moment.