It’s all about Teamwork at Momentum 2019

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Did you hear about the Cork man who came to Kerry to tell the Kingdom’s finest on how business is done across the border? Well, we all laughed when said Cork man, Dan Mackey of Teamwork.com, regaled a full house at KerrySciTech’s Momentum 2019 event with tales of entrepreneurial escapades, some of which were borrowed from a cute Kerry man selling hot dogs in Killarney!

How Teamwork Works

Dan, who was guest speaker at the event (held at the very impressive National Digital Skills Centre, Tralee), along with his co-founder Peter Coppinger, received the 2018 EY Entrepreneur of the Year Ireland award for their Cork-based Saas (software as a service) company which has over 24,000 paying customers across 183 countries, including some of the world’s biggest names—Disney, Spotify, and Netflix to name just a few. Having never received any outside funding, Teamwork has big growth ambitions. It’s targeting $50 million in annual recurring revenues by the end of 2021, with an ultimate goal of hitting $450 million within a decade. To do this, they need to expand their team of software engineers, sales, marketing, and customer support staff, but, like all companies in the tech space, sourcing the right talent can be the trickiest piece of the puzzle.

So how do they attract the right people? Put simply by Dan, it’s all about creating a company and culture where people want to do their best work in an environment that they love, and that means giving employees the flexibility and autonomy to achieve their targets. By providing everyone with an innovative employee experience (yes, there are slides in their offices), the team not only works hard but, more importantly, enjoys working. That is the key to attracting and keeping talent!

Crediting their entire team for the EY Award, Dan and Peter will now go on to represent Ireland at the World Entrepreneur of the Year Awards in Monte Carlo next year.

Insightful Panels

We heard stories about the challenges and triumphs of scaling a business from some of Kerry’s most successful and inspiring tech and engineering entrepreneurs:

Mike Stack, Tricel CEO
JT O’Sullivan, BioAtlantis CEO
Aoife Ni Mhuiri, Salaso CEO
Jerry Kennelly, Tweak.com CEO
Mike Fitzgerald, Netfeasa Chairman

Our final panel highlighted new and innovative skills solutions, including new courses to address particular skill requirements. Panellists also discussed how redefining traditional hiring criteria can help find candidates in untapped and under-tapped talent pools. Contributions came from: