UNDER THE RADAR Niall McConnell and Nik Healy Cartridge Green: Half tree hugger, half businessman is how Niall McConnell describes himself. The Dubliner and his business partner, Nik Healy, have set up Cartridge Green, a new eco-friendly chain of printer cartridge refilling stores.
"We passionately believe that the environment and environmental issues are going to play a fundamental part of everyday life from now on," he says. "As such, we grabbed an opportunity to ride this eco-friendly wave and what better way to do that than with our name, Cartridge Green? It's a statement and it says exactly what we stand for on the tin."
Both McConnell and Healy took circuitous routes to setting up their own eco-friendly franchise business. McConnell did business and legal studies at UCD while Healy studied agricultural science. They met when doing a postgraduate computer science course in 2000.
McConnell worked as a business analyst for MoneyMate before setting up a company in 2003 called Adimpact Media, where he managed and sold outdoor and large-format print media advertising for big clients.
Healy, meanwhile, went on to work as a management consultant. "I started my career in 2001 and, at that time, there was no emphasis whatsoever really in business on environmental savings," he says.
"If you take any form of recycling in Ireland, the majority actually costs the person money to recycle, whereas this particular form of recycling [ cartridge recycling] saves people money. So there is an incentive both environmentally and financially to use this [ service]."
The two men came up with the idea for the company when they were operating franchises for international printer refill chain Cartridge World - McConnell had a store in Dublin while Healy ran one in his native Tipperary.
"We felt there was a gap in the market for a more Irish-based, green brand," says McConnell.
"We felt that a higher degree of emphasis and importance needed to be placed on product quality for the end user and we felt that a bigger diversification into different product lines and revenue streams was vital for this business to come out of being a niche and to be more mainstream.
"With that in mind, we are launching an online office supplies and stationery catalogue and office printing services."
Having been a franchisee for another chain, McConnell is only too aware that they won't have the market to themselves. "Our worry is not the competition, it is the quality of the competition; the lower the quality of the competition, the more the general public will become disillusioned with the cartridge refill concept because they will believe that cartridge refilling does not work as a concept."
Product quality is a problem for the cartridge refill business and McConnell concedes that there is a perception that refills are an inferior product.
"You have to understand it is a secondhand product that people are buying. With any secondhand product, there may be deficiencies. What we are trying to do is work very hard to bridge the gap between what is a tolerable deficiency and an intolerable one," he says.
"It is all about education. We work really hard in-store to educate customers as to what printers are very efficient to run."
Cartridge Green is taking a different approach to how stores are franchised, McConnell says."We're trying to alter the rigid franchise model," he says.
"People have money to invest but they don't want to commit to the day-to-day running of this business. It's their business. All we do is provide functional management support - the 8.30am to 6pm kind of support. They still sign the cheques. We have no control over that. We make sure the shop is staffed, clean and customer service levels are adhered to."
The two men have six of their own Cartridge Green stores at the moment but plan to have a network of 30 franchised outlets around the State within two years. The first of these will open in Blackrock, Dublin, and Ennis, Co Clare, at the end of this month.
International expansion also beckons. Getting the business to where it is today has been an exercise in self-financing, but they hope to raise €1 million this year to export the franchise.
ON THE RECORD
Name: Niall McConnell
Age: 29
Education: Oatlands College, Mount Merrion, Dublin; Bachelor of Business and Legal Studies, UCD; postgraduate course in computer science, UCD.
Work: Worked in IT for almost two years before he set up and ran an outdoor advertising company - Adimpact Media. In September 2007, he set up Cartridge Green with Nik Healy.
Family: In a relationship with Sharon.
Inspired by: "My parents - they taught me that good manners, a little bit of luck and a lot of hard work will always pay off . . . From a business perspective I admire any person or company that has the vision to succeed outside the Irish market. Examples include Michael Smurfit, Liam O'Mahony, Denis O'Brien, Brendan McGuinness, Maurice Pratt."
Most likes to: Play golf and five-a-side soccer; support Leinster and Ireland rugby teams and Manchester United.
Favourite book: Irish crime books.
Name: Nik Healy
Age: 31
Education: Clonmel CBS; Bachelor of Agricultural Science, UCD; postgraduate course in computer science, UCD.
Work: Business analyst with Quantera management consultants (now CGI) in Ireland and Canada. Cartridge World franchisee from 2004 to 2007.
Family: Married to Dr Maeve Moloney.
Inspired by: Sir Gerry Robinson.
Most likes to: play golf and soccer, travel and cook.
Favourite book: Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything.
