David Behan's Web Design Ireland Blog

collab.ie

Yesterday, a colleague of mine pointed me over to Collab.ie as a neat resource to check out for Entrepreneurs. Upon arriving at the site, I was surprised I hadn’t come across it before but I think that’s because it’s quite new. The first thing that jumped out at me was its simple, yet elegant design. After playing with the site for a short while, I had to say I was impressed. Then this morning, while checking my rss feeds, I see that Collab.ie is part of the Tuesday Push. I had to write something.

The site has been set up by SmartCube and the design was done by Lee Munroe who is a freelancer web designer in Belfast. I’ve come across Lee’s work a few times over the past few months and have always been impressed. Another good job done here too.

Their own description of Collab.ie:
Irish entrepreneurs seeking skills and resources now have access to a new free online service that puts them in touch with like minded people. The website, created by Irish start-up software company Smartcube, aims to bring ideas and skills together. Collab is a simple, easy to use, free online tool to help bring ideas and skillsets together. If you have an idea and you need to find a person or people to work with you or if you want some feedback on a project you are considering collab is for you.

Collab.ie in Feed a Fever RSS

Get the RSS Feed:
Without further a do, I advise you to subscribe to their RSS Feed so that you’re getting a constant stream of new projects and businesses looking for skilled people/advice/etc. And indeed if you have a project or business in the pipeline (or even just floating around your head) and you are looking for skilled people to work with, why not post it up and see what comes of it. I’ve just added the RSS feed to my lovely shiney new RSS Reader called Fever. I’ll not miss any new entries on their site now. Oh, they also have a twitter account.

Best of luck with the site guys. Good idea, good design. Credit where credit’s due!

p.s. Ben Dunne should have come to you guys to build TenderMe.ie!!!

IQ Prize

We’re only 11 days into June and what a month it’s turning out to be!!

My freelance business has been successfully rebranded as Web Together. Next, we move into our bright new offices in Ashbourne. Then, we get some really nice weather…

And now, the icing on the cake, we have been shortlisted for the IQ Prize! We’ve been shortlisted for our Freelancer Web Application called Octopied.

249 entries and we are now in the final 8. Happy Days! We now have a Dragon’s Den style pitch to prepare for July 8th but we’ll start worrying about that next week. Last night and today are about enjoying the moment!

Accompanied by Ronan Morris and Michael Flanagan, my associates on this, I went in last night for the shortlist announcement and it was great to meet the guys from IQ Content. They had chosen the aptly named Sky Bar to hold their reception. A great 7th floor view of the city. Great venue for an event.

The Charity auction raised €1,300 for Barnardos which was great. Sale of the night was a €200 voucher for Patrick Guilbaud’s that sold for about €300!

What an unbelievable number of entries to the contest! I hope Enterprise Ireland are watching. It’s great that the Awards have highlighted this potential innovation area which has up to now been pretty much under the radar.

The no-strings-attached-funding prize is a great idea because what normally stops these web application ideas from getting  to launch is the very long lead in times before you start generating any cash.

• First, you need to build your app
• Then, (in most cases) you have to offer a free trial period
• And finally, you have to gradually build up your customer base.

I’m not sure what this adds up to but it feels like about 12 months. The very guys that have ideas like this normally can’t really afford to take the required cashflow hit in order to make it happen.  Anyway, so hats off to IQ Content.

Anyone know where you can get a box set of Dragons Den, Series 1 – 7??? I need to brush up!