If you have an idea and want to commercialise it, the State supports are there – but you have to find the one that suits you and don't expect a free handout, writes CLAIRE O'CONNELL

IF YOU ever tune into Government messages about innovation and the smart economy, you’ll be familiar with the word “commercialise”, and could be forgiven for thinking that an idea is only worth having if it translates into wealth and jobs.

Academic-based projects may have access to newly beefed-up technology transfer supports, but not all good ideas start on campus. Suppose you work in industry and you see a new product or a better way of doing things. Or maybe you are unemployed and you have a blinding flash of inspiration about a company you could start. How will the State help you put your idea on to the first rung? A bit like getting on to the property ladder, in many cases you need to build up something more than just the idea for the door to financial support to open.

For smaller entrepreneurs, the first port of call is probably one of the 35 city and county enterprise boards (CEBs) dotted around the country, which offer training and in some cases financial support to local businesses.

“We are your first point of contact – if you have a business idea you think is worth exploring, come into your local enterprise board at as early a stage as possible,” says Seán McKeown, chief executive of the Kilkenny Enterprise Board.

The non-commercial State bodies offer support for small start-ups and businesses with a local focus, the importance of which can sometimes be overlooked, according to McKeown. “We don’t make announcements of 700 jobs; our jobs are scattered, but they are touching every town and village in our area of operation,” he says.

The kind of support you get from a CEB will depend on how far along you are with your idea, explains McKeown, who has seen a change in the kinds of proposals coming in recently. “Unlike in the last 10 years where people were coming in with well-thought-out ideas, people are coming in now at a stage where they need lot more intensive hand-holding to get up and running,” he says.

Supports include subsidised training courses on starting and running a business, feasibility studies and in some cases financial assistance for capital outlay and personnel costs when the project is suitable and ready for it. But where large sums are involved it’s not just a free handout.

“For every €10,000 that we approve to a project, at least 30 per cent is repayable over a five-year period,” says McKeown. “That gives us additional resources over a period to recycle into the local economy in the support of other projects. We are gradually moving away from the grant-dependency culture.”

In a recent strategy document the CEB network claimed it could create 11,000 jobs nationwide in three years, but McKeown points out that the figure is contingent on continuing to get funding, which currently stands at €34 million from the State per year.

“The budgets nationally have been cut by around 30 per cent this year. We have suffered like every other public sector agency,” he says, noting that the Kilkenny board will be under pressure to support the pipeline of projects that are on hand.

Meanwhile, a stark reminder of the squeeze on financial support is evident on the Dublin City Enterprise Board website, which at the time of writing this article had posted a message in red print: “At present we are no longer accepting grant applications. We have [severely] limited funding.”

If you are a larger fish or you have sights on bigger ponds, incubation units at third-level institutions or Enterprise Ireland’s High-Performance Start-up Unit might offer the right bait. “We would deal with the start-up that has the potential within a three-year horizon to create at least 10 jobs and €1 million turnover, and to be export focused,” says Greg Treston, manager of the high-potential start-up division at Enterprise Ireland.

The biggest areas they deal with are software, services, life sciences and clean-tech, and higher ambition can mean higher risk, so the programme likes to see teams rather than individuals, along with some indication that they can carry the idea through.

“We would rarely see people with an idea and nothing else,” says Treston. “Typically we would see someone with an idea and knowledge of the domain, who has worked in the area or has some reasonable connection with a large customer or access to a particular technology that would give them competitive advantage.” The centre brings around 200 projects through feasibility studies each year, offering each around €15,000 in financial support, but you would have to match that, explains Treston: “You can put your own time against it, so in a lot of cases it is cash neutral rather than cash positive.” Around 75 companies then go on to be supported and as they grow and pass milestones they can raise external funds and receive larger chunks of financial support from Enterprise Ireland.

Suppose you have made it out of the traps and your small business has a new approach or product it wants to develop. Don’t forget about Europe – with the squeeze on national resources, projects funded under the €50 billion EU-funded Framework 7 programme (FP7) offer a potential avenue for companies to get around 75 per cent funding for research and development.

Already Irish companies have been granted a combined €55 million as consortium partners in FP7 projects, and around €40 million of that has gone to small or medium enterprises, according to Imelda Lambkin, who directs the Irish support network for FP7 in Ireland. “If you think of the companies here looking to export, here’s a mechanism where they can make international contacts,” she says.

LAYING THE GROUNDWORK: "WE HAD TO DO A LOT TO GET THE MONEY"

When Sinead Nulty and Steve Quinlan saw a business idea they sought financial support from the State to develop it – but not before they had laid the groundwork.

“We had both been working in IT for 10 years and we had worked for lots of other companies but we found that no one was really building software the way we felt software should be built,” says Nulty, co-founder of Kablingy software.

So the duo set up a business and started building browser-based applications that were tailored to the user and could be up, running and making money quickly.

“Initially we used the [Fingal] enterprise board for training, which we couldn’t have afforded otherwise, and we went to monthly network meetings, built contacts and learnt so much from other businesses,” says Nulty, who adds that they also drummed up custom for their products. “In that first year 80 per cent of our business came from those networks.”

They moved their offices to Dunboyne and started looking at developing online products for export, so applied to the Meath Enterprise Board for €10,000 in funding. “We already had 200 customers – we went with a proven model but we needed to enhance it,” says Nulty. “And it wasn’t just a case of signing a cheque and giving it to us – they came to the office and looked at what we were doing, and we had to put quite a substantial proposal together and give in our accounts. We had to do a lot to get the money, and rightly so.”