Look to Wexford - Business Connections
Business Connections is a podcast series brought to you by County Wexford Chamber as part of the wider Look to Wexford campaign - an initiative showcasing County Wexford as a place to live, work, invest and do business.
The series shares the stories and experiences of people connected to Wexford - those building careers here, starting and scaling businesses, returning home to make their mark, and driving the next wave of innovation and sustainability.
Through candid conversations, Business Connections shines a light on Wexford’s dynamic enterprise ecosystem, from multinational employers and family-run businesses to local companies competing on a global stage.
The series also explores the county’s growing role in Ireland’s green energy transition, highlighting the ambition, talent and vision helping shape Wexford’s future.
Look to Wexford - Business Connections
Episode 5: From Start-Up to Scale-Up
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Rory O’Connor of Scurri shares how a business built in County Wexford grew into a global technology company powering some of the world’s biggest retailers.
In conversation with Paula Roche, CEO of County Wexford Chamber, Rory shares the story about leaving corporate life to start Scurri, and how he has scaled it into a global player that works with some of the world’s largest companies. He also talks about why he has always been determined to build Scurri from Wexford, even though it may have been easier to scale the company from Dublin – and why that decision has been central to the company’s success.
About the guest:
Rory O’Connor founded Scurri to simplify delivery management for online retailers. Fifteen years later, the business employs more than 50 people and works with major international brands including eBay, Sainsbury’s, Argos and An Post, processing over 200 million shipments every year and supporting €20 billion in e-commerce transactions.
Business Connections is supported by LEADER.
I'm a Wexford man. You know, if you cut me, I'd bleed purple.
SPEAKER_00I'd be a ghost.
SPEAKER_02So it was important for me to set something up in Wexford. There are challenges to that. Probably would have been easier to set up in Dublin, to be honest. But there is a lot of fantastic talent in Wexford, and it's just harder to find it. But when you do get them, I think they're more loyal and just as good as what you can find anywhere else.
SPEAKER_00And you're very welcome back to Business Connections, a podcast by County Wexford Chamber. In this episode, Paula Roche sits down with one of Wexford's most successful entrepreneurs, whose story proves how global impact can be built from a local base in County Wexford. Rory O'Connor left a corporate career to build Scurry from the ground up. It all started with a simple idea to make delivery easier for online retailers. And now, 15 years on, the business employs over 50 people and powers delivery management for some of the world's largest retailers, including eBay, Sainsbury's, Unpust, and Argos. Scurry processes over 200 million shipments a year and supports 20 billion in global e-commerce transactions. Based on Wexford's Main Street, Rory made a deliberate choice to grow a global technology company from the county, creating high-value jobs, attracting international talent, and building a business that is deeply connected to its local community. Rory and Paula talk about the realities of building a business from scratch, the importance of ambition, resilience, and community, and balancing the demands of long hours and business travel with well-being and family life. They also discuss what makes Wexford the perfect place for businesses to start up locally and then scale up internationally.
SPEAKER_01Welcome Rory, welcome to County Extra Chamber. Tell us a bit about how Scurry came about, starting in Duncan.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, um I originally had the idea of going back 15, 20, 20 years ago, I suppose. I suppose I always wanted to start my own business. That was probably something that was kind of burning inside me for a long, long time. And um the opportunity came up then when I started working in the kind of online area uh over a couple of years, and uh at one stage I just said, look, here I've got to go do this and actually uh start my own business. That idea of making deliveries a bit simpler using technology, I just kind of uh went and went for it, I suppose.
SPEAKER_01So for those listening, what does Scurry actually do?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, SCURI is an online delivery management software, and basically it helps online retailers uh manage and improve the delivery. Delivery is a really uh important component of an online purchase, so probably one of the most important. So it's about making that easy for our customers' customers. So making to get the online delivery, the parcel delivery as easy and giving the merchant the tools to manage those.
SPEAKER_01And why did you choose delivery management? Like were you seeing a gap in the market? Were you seeing a challenge in the market?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so originally I worked for Waterford Crystal years and years ago. Yeah, and uh we uh I was involved in the team that were kind of building the dot com, the water for dot com. Ah right. So direct consumer deliveries. And I also uh was involved in teams that were uh delivering to our own consumers that we had sold to in the gallery and places like that. So I would have been involved with managing deliveries there and saw how important it was to the purchase. So um if it went well, you had very satisfied customers. If it didn't, you know, you had lots of inbound calls and complaints to deal with. So uh yeah, that's that's how it came to understanding how important delivery was for purchases. And then, you know, as the internet was growing, you know, online is um probably the area that it is actually most important because you actually don't have a physical location at all. Everything is digital, and when the um you know when the product is delivered, that's the first time that you have a physical interaction with the company.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So you're over eleven, twelve years in business now?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we're about fifteen, but we're yeah, fifteen, yeah, yeah, fifteen years. Uh 2010, yeah.
SPEAKER_0155 staff around?
SPEAKER_02Yes, we've got 55 staff at the moment, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So how did it get from just you and your partner Joe as well was involved from the very beginning? So how did it get from you and Joe to where it is now, 15 years, and what kind of were the early challenges?
SPEAKER_02Um well, first of all, the uh the uh the early challenges were um you know kind of settling in on the business model. Um so originally we were probably doing more business around smaller traders, so those uh who were actually you know selling on Dundee or on eBay. Um so that was originally our our focus. Um and we kind of found out that you know selling individually to consumers required lots of capital. Yes, you need lots of advertising, um not always a huge amount of return customers, so you know it's large volume of advertising, consumer focus. Um after about three or four years, we decided to kind of focus more on B2B, and we found that like probably where I had come from, enterprise customers had those problems, and we were able to satisfy those problems with the technology we had built for consumers. Uh so we kind of pivoted the business after about four or five years to actually focus on enterprise businesses, and that was probably that was probably the biggest challenge overcome because then uh it was easier to have one-to-one relationships with the uh with the enterprise customers, and we actually saw the company actually start to really accelerate at that stage.
SPEAKER_01Wow. You multiple lines of business, as I understand, are working with different types of networks of businesses and enterprises. Do you want to talk us through some of the examples of that and some of the businesses I know some of the names you work with, and they're quite big names in the industry really.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. We have three real main areas that we have focused on today. So one is the retail customers. So retail customers for us are enterprise uh retail customers, and we'd have names like um Sainsbury's in the UK, Argos, that size of enterprise customers. So they're retailers, um, they generally have an online, they always for us have an online presence, and they have their own warehouse where they ship their goods out of and they they're they've built their own tech stack. Um so they've built a number of technology solutions that they've put together to deliver their their goods, of which Scurry would be managing the deliveries. Um so that's one. And the other then is we also supply our software as a white label to um to postal services or carriers. So uh onpost would be a customer of ours. Yeah. So they provide our software uh under the onpost brand to their customers, um, and it would be just for the onpost. So it only creates the label for for on for onpost. Whereas the one for we'll say Argos is multi-carrier, it allows them the to ship to all the different carriers that they that that they they work with. So that's that's the second one. And the third one then is we work with marketplaces. eBay is our biggest marketplace, and not on the high street in the UK would be another one. Um so marketplaces basically are allowing um merchants to sell to their customers on a marketplace, and we help them organize the delivery. So they use their buying power as a marketplace to give their customers the ability to ship, and they use our software to provide the shipping labels and the tracking to the uh to their to their customers.
SPEAKER_01So you're making quite a big impact, aren't you?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we're making a huge impact. So if you think about it, we've about over we fo um process over 200 million shipments every year. So 200 million shipments is about 20 billion in gross merchandise value. So that's the value that goes through the platform. So it's about uh 20 billion per year uh of value go through the it goes through the platform.
SPEAKER_01Do you feel like wow I've done it now? Yeah, because what was the goal? Like, was that kind of like oh I want to achieve that much shipment value? That's exciting, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02Well I remember when one of the first times putting down I wanted to see a million shipments going through the um through the platform and wondering how the hell did we ever get to that? Because I think you know at the time we were doing you know hundreds of shipments, you know, in the early days, you know, and saying how would we ever get to you know to a million. Um, you know, we do you know, we do three or four million a a week now at this stage. And sometimes actually at peak we do millions in a day. Um uh so peak is you know at Black uh Friday, Cyber Monday. You know, that period in uh our business is the uh time when you know the majority of shipping happens, and our system at that stage has to be able to deal with you know two, three million shippings in a day. Uh at that that stage. And I was thinking about a year, you know, going back when I when we started.
SPEAKER_01How are we going to do it? And then now you're well exceeded. Is there a new target now in terms of where you want to go?
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Are you going to divulge what the new target is?
SPEAKER_02Not at the moment, because we're actually working on it. So it's interesting. So working with Enterprise Ireland, we have actually uh a session with Enterprise Ireland afterwards, and we're we're on the Leadership for Growth programme and we're actually working on our new strategy at the moment. So we haven't actually fixed it yet. Yeah. But we have we I have some ideas in my head as to what that might be.
SPEAKER_01In that relationship with Enterprise Ireland, who goes higher bar in terms of goals? Yourself or then? Who pushes each other? Do you push each other?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but they definitely do push you, yeah. So I think that's that's the great thing is the Leadership for Growth programme is really good because it's a uh it's been going for a good number of years, and there's many successful um entrepreneurs in the country have been through it. Um but what they're trying to do there, and I think it's really uh good from Enterprise Ireland's point of view, is they're trying to uh uh raise ambition. So, like no matter what you say, they'll ask you, Can you do more? Okay. Which is great. It's great, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01It's like having a shareholder or someone behind you kind of pushing you, can you do more? What can you do? Yeah. Love that. And they've been involved, well, Leo and them have been involved from the very beginning for you, have they?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I mean I have to I think the supports we have in Ireland are fantastic. So I started my first grant was from the Wexford Local Development, because we were based in Duncan. Out at the time it was outside of the town and it was about rural development and initially, and I got my first grant from them. Eileen Dake gave me my first uh I suppose she was the first person that supported us, which was really brilliant. It was a it was a relatively small amount, I think it was 12k or something like that. We've raised 15 million in in investment at this stage, but that was probably the most important 12k that we got because it was gave you confidence that somebody thought that what you were doing was uh good enough to put some money in.
SPEAKER_01And you would never have thought back then it was going to be what it became, I supp I assume. Or did you? Yeah, you did. Maybe.
SPEAKER_02Maybe. Yeah, well I um you you always had kind of relatively big ambitions. Um probably on the longer term. You know, finding out where the m first million you know transactions would come from was hard to, you know, kind of but I I always thought it was going to be big.
SPEAKER_01So after Wexford Local Developments grant, then you started working with the Leo and then Enterprise Ireland.
SPEAKER_02And I went through that sequence. We went through that pretty quick because um I think um they recognized uh that there was ambition and potential there, so we kind of went through but we went through each of those steps and each one of them was important to us in in in helping. And we still had a relationship, even when I had gone to Enterprise Ireland, I still had lots of relationships with with the Leo, which were very helpful and and still is helpful, you know, uh, you know, in in terms of supporting us. I think um we have a wonderful infrastructure in Ireland to help us. Because I have friends now who are you know global entrepreneurs, they've come from all over the world, and a lot of them don't have anything like the sports that we have in Ireland.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, you're you're very lucky, and it's a relationship you've maintained over the years, but obviously they believe in you and believe in your product and service, so absolutely why not?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but it's a two-way street as well. So I mean I always do what I can to help and you know to give back. So if Enterprise Ireland wants me to speak or something, I mean I think you know it's quid pro quo. Um, you know, if if uh they've helped me and I helped them, and if I can help somebody else, you know, who who's starting off. Well, that's that's great.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's exactly why you're here with me today, Rory. You're here, it's sharing your story, which will absolutely inspire somebody else. Um so go back going back to the 200 million shipments, right? That's a huge number. It's surely not just you and Joe alone, obviously. No. Tell me a bit about your team in terms of the key roles that are required to run an organization like your Scarry.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's definitely not me. I mean, first of all, I can't write a line of code and we're a software company, so I can probably barely read a line, but um, you know, uh so we we have a fantastic uh team of engineers who create the product and keep it maintained. And we have people from all over Europe who either have come here to Wexford to work with us or work remotely with us. Um so Dmitri has been working with us for over 11 years. Um he's Ukrainian, he's currently based in Poland because of the war. Dmitri, you know, a fantastic engineer, um, been with us for a long, long time, loves Wexford, it's his uh second home now, so he comes here you know a number of times a year, loves the premier for a uh you know, uh for a chipper. The guy, you know, the guys at this kind of their second home now are um are remote guys. Junior looks after that. Um so uh Junior Goodie, he's he's Brazilian. Uh he came here, he was in Cork for you know I think a few months before um moving here to Wexford, and he's actually married to another one one of our team, a lady from um uh from Archstown originally, Rose Power. And uh they uh so he's you know moved over here, settled, and is running the engineering team here in in Wexford. So bringing an international dimension, a kind of excellence in software development to the to the town, and he's heavily involved in we have tech events um you know on a monthly basis out of the scurry building. And Junior's you know actively involved in that and supporting tech development in the community, so uh I think that's great. And so Rose looks after her operations. I worked with Rose previously. Uh at one stage I worked in AOL and AOL Broadband in Waterford, met Rose there. We used to work together and she joined me. Uh, she looks after operations, fantastic skills in that area, looks after all our customers, and is really good and really experienced at that. I've Neve uh Kihou from uh Kilmore. Neve looks after product, um, been with me for again ten years, and uh Neam has uh got a fantastic eye for seeing problems uh that we can build solutions for.
SPEAKER_01We like them people, don't we?
SPEAKER_02Oh, we do, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we need them people in the business.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we absolutely do. And you could bring Neve to meet any customer, and she has that combination of you know the ability to you know kind of connect with customers, understand their needs, and then translate that into text to because tech technical people sometimes find can find it difficult to actually connect with customers.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and translate.
SPEAKER_02And trans and translate, yeah. Because they do kind of you know, I think it's kind of like a football team, you're forward, back, midfielders, goalkeepers, you know, there's people that do job that do jobs and do jobs well. And I think that's that's really important. But when they come together as a team, yeah, you know, they that's that's that's the that's when the magic happens.
SPEAKER_01No, it sounds like a great team.
SPEAKER_02I've left out a few other people too. I must say this. We have a great finance CFO. You need a finance person. Michael Michael Fett.
SPEAKER_01To be honest, keep you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Michael is fantastic on the finance side, has uh has helped me out, and again, is with us for for he's probably about eight years or so with us at this stage. Um and uh, you know, kind of the your right-hand person. Um my you know, I I'm probably a bit of a risk taker to some extent, so we have a kind of uh yin yin yang yang uh relationship because uh Michael is uh you know you're a really solid financial person, so you know I'm always going, he's always pulling me back and saying, All right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and you need someone on watching the margins and all that, don't you?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um in terms of your Wexter base, you're a big tech company, and a lot of people would think you'd have to be based out of Dublin to scale an organization like that. You've chose to keep it in Wexford. Now I know you travel a lot, I follow your social media, you're always on the road. Um, how does it how's it worked in terms of scaling your business from Wexford?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, uh that has been a really important thing for me personally, and um so you know, I was uh I came out of school, you know, in the in in the very early 90s when there weren't a lot of opportunities, and I was lucky enough to get an opportunity in with a great employer in Waterford Crystal at that stage. But a lot of my friends had to leave and you know go to the US, go to the UK, go to Australia. So I wanted to make sure that when we were building a company, there was you know there was probably a lot of choices. One one was yeah, I wanted to build it in Wexford particularly. Um and um I had worked in Waterford. I'm from Duncan and Waterford is closer to me, actually, if I had to set up in Waterford, but uh I'm a Wexford man. And uh, you know, if you cut me, I'd bleed purple. I'd be gold so it was important for me to set something up in Wexford, and um there are challenges to that. You know, it probably would have been easier to set up in Dublin, there you would probably find talent easier, to be honest. But there is a lot of fantastic talent in Wexford, and it's just harder to find it. It's harder work to get it, but when you do get them, I think they're more loyal and just as good as what you can find anywhere else. And then we do augment it with people remote. So Dmitri is in Poland and uh you know he's been a fantastic addition to the company, and Mat is in Hungary, and they've been with us for a long, long time. They're two of our most senior developers, but um you know they're almost Wexford.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's great that you can do that, isn't it? It's great that you can have such a remote team and it works so well. But I think a company like Scary attracts the talent back. Like so our diaspora who went on to leave Wexford to have a great career elsewhere. Someone like Scarry is attracting that talent back to Wexford, and they're bringing back experience and life lessons and all that, which is exactly what's going to help your business as well.
SPEAKER_02Totally. I mean, and it takes a while to get to that, so you've got to build up to that and build a brand, etc. And that's been important, is you know, we've actually spent uh I learned that from what for Chris, they built a fantastic brand around the company, and people had a sense of belonging to that brand, and you know, I still, you know, kind of love that brand because of my experience with it when I w when I worked there, and that's what we tried to to build in Scurry. So we're you know, we spend a little you know, a bit of effort on branding. You know, we talked earlier about you know, kind of uh you know you see people around town with you know the scurry hoodies and scurry jackets and scurry bags and you know whatnot. And um yeah, that branding and uh that identity with the comp building that identity with the company is really important.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So not only did you choose to base your business on Wexford, but you chose to base your business on Main Street and Wexford, which again is quite unusual um when you don't have a customer base in Wexford typically, but you wanted to do that to integrate with the community, I'm guessing, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01Tell me a bit about that.
SPEAKER_02I mean that's that's really important. I think um you know, so what we do in Scurry is we help the infrastructure for selling and online, and online sales are great, they're fantastic, provide an immense amount of choice to people um that we didn't have before. But it does impact on local retail. And that's that is a fact, like you know, so um I think there is a way for us to give back, is to be you know, uh centered in the town in Wexford, and people who come in uh every day spend money in the town, and I think that that's that's really really important. So I kind of recognise what we're doing in terms of you know, we are part of the online sales, and that's really important, and that's not going away. And you know, we I think people need to embrace that, and merchants need to embrace that. But um uh, you know, what we can do then is we can you know make a little effort of moving from maybe out in an outside park into the inside of town, and it makes a big impact on the community.
SPEAKER_01And you have your artist window, so your business your b your your office looks quite small from the outside, but it's huge inside, it's beautiful inside. And what I love is downstairs in the reception area you have the artist window and you're supporting you're supporting local artists with a different show every every month. It's incredible. Where did that idea come from?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean Joe came up with that idea and it's uh you know it's fantastic in credit to her. So we were we were gonna buy some piece of art and put it in the window because we have a you know a retail front window that that's on you know that's on the main street. So we said, look, maybe we'd buy a piece of art and support an artist. And Joe came up with the idea and said, well, why don't we just offer the window to you know to the local artists, which might be better for them in terms of gives uh more exposure to more people. And every month there's a different artist there. They've displayed their best work, and uh, we know of you know many purchases that have happened from people who've seen the the uh the art in the window, and that's fantastic. Amazing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And not only were you a window for artists, but you were also uh suppose a focal point at the flaw as well. Did you get to enjoy the flaw over the last two years?
SPEAKER_02Uh flaw has been fantastic. Kudos to everybody who is involved in it. So we actually brought customers over um for for the flat. So our customers very We have very few customers in Ireland. Most of our customers are in the UK and Europe. And we brought over for the Fla some of our key customers who had an absolute ball. And I think there's two from the UK at least who have said that they may have started following the flaw off the back of it. So yeah, it was uh yeah, it was great.
SPEAKER_01It was amazing, wasn't it? And the sunny south east played up to its name. How did we get two years in a row of excellent weather? It was amazing.
SPEAKER_02The gods were looking down, definitely looking down on us. Yeah, definitely. It was a fantastic event, and it just really showed up Wexford in in the most positive light. Yeah. Not alone, not alone in Ireland but around the world.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Um, you reference your tech setup or start what's it called? Your tech meeting. Every month you do a tech meetup, is it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the Wexford Tech Meetup, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So I'm assuming other tech companies and in um people are coming to that. So in in a way, you're creating an ecosystem, which is really important from a chambers perspective in terms of creating that ecosystem that people can learn from each other because I learned from you. We we we all learn from each other. Is that why that came about? Why did you start a tech meetup?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, um originally I kind of set up the original tech meetup years ago, probably to get more learning myself about what the tech and who was around and trying to build up an infrastructure. And then it kind of died um yeah around COVID, so pre-co just pre-COVID, and then post-COVID, a couple of guys came to me and said, like, do you mind if we take it off? So uh Junior inside and a number of people externally started working on uh uh on it, and I was delighted to give the location we support some you know, drinks and food and stuff at it, which is relatively small for the positivity that it gives. So, yeah, it's great. Like, I am so interested in seeing you know, tech companies, start up, develop, and create jobs in in Wexford. So anything we can do to help that is um uh something that we want to be involved in.
SPEAKER_01Excellent. How has AI impacted your world in terms of innovation?
SPEAKER_02So yeah, that's a pushing your boundaries. That's the hot topic of the days. So we acquired an AI company in the UK about two years ago, yeah. So a company called Hello Done, and we've learned an awful lot about uh AI in that. So we actually have our own small language model which we acquired, and uh we have um gone on a program of uh kind of converting our own engineers to uh AI. Um we're seeing dramatic um productivity improvements from the use of AI with our own developers, so that's the first point. So we're actually using AI to help develop our code, and that's you know, that's gonna be transformational. I know, yeah. Yeah, absolutely transformational. So the second thing then is that I'm kind of uh revealing future strategy here is that our product will become more and more AI enabled over not so long of time now. In the next in the next kind of three to six months, you're gonna see a a dramatic use of AI within our product. And I think it will be actually transformational and it's really, really exciting. Yeah, I mean there's challenges with it, like you know, AI hallucinates, there's challenges with it, you've got to be very careful the way that you use it. However, the potential is absolutely massive. And we've trained everybody in AI internally. We see that at this stage now about 80% of our employees use AI every day. What the engineers are doing with it at the moment is I I think within a year probably none of our engineers will write code themselves. It will all be AI written, they will be prompting uh they will be prompting code. Testing. We have a kind of a unique way of testing. We don't have a test team. Uh all our developers always test their own code now, so they do pair programming and peer review um testing. We don't have a testing function, but AI agents are almost now able to test all the code as if another pair person would have done.
SPEAKER_01And that's critical, obviously, because the business you work in is a very fast-moving business. It's not going to wait for anybody. You have to make sure the product you put out or the changes you put out are going to be ready.
SPEAKER_02That's pretty impressive. Yeah, so that and and it's important because if you think about it, getting parasites out the door is a c ordered a cash process. So if something stops, it stops money being actually collected. Exactly. Yeah, so it has to stand up. You know, we're in an industry in an area where it has to be extremely precise, but AI is able to be extremely precise. Um, you have to put guardrails on, you need to, you know, kind of check stuff, but it has an amazing potential for the future.
SPEAKER_01Entrepreneurs, you're obviously an entrepreneur. What advice would you have for other young entrepreneurs? Not even young ones, people who are in midlife. Yeah, midlife.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I start I didn't start, I mean, I had a full career, corporate career, so before I before I started as an entrepreneur. So like I was in late 30s, early 40s before I started scurry. So um my advice is yeah, start whenever. Like there's no right or wrong time to start. You could say I often wonder, you know, if I had uh the experience I have now, you know, if I had to start at 20 and had that experience at 30, what you could do. But then again, I think my experience that I built up in corporate life helped me kind of uh be successful as well. So I don't think there's a there's a magic answer. But whenever I think if people want to do it, just go for it.
SPEAKER_01And it's not too late, say in your 30s, forties or 50s.
SPEAKER_02So right, so the most successful entrepreneurs, this people probably don't realise this, but you know, it is a fact. VCs have studied this, so it's actually 48 is the most the most successful entrepreneurs uh globally as the age is forty-eight. So there's a misconception that it's it's it's young people in their twenties. Yeah. There's a few of those that have been uh successful, but they you know, the average age for you know the median uh for the most successful is forty-eight. So no, you're you know, uh and there's plenty of entrepreneurs that have been even uh older than that.
SPEAKER_01It's like you said, you need that kind of industry experience and corporate experience, um, and it lends itself very well to being an entrepreneur, doesn't it? Absolutely. Um but even the sole traders, it's a tough business, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02It is. So I did that for a while. Yeah, yeah, it's tough. Yeah, um challenges did you face?
SPEAKER_01How did you overcome them?
SPEAKER_02I consulted for about four years, so and um yeah, it's tough. That's that's that's really hard. You imagine there are there are a huge amount of advantages, all the free time that you could have, etc. etc. But that's not true, Jew. You know, you know, you've got to go look for business, you've got to manage the business, and you've got to deliver the business. So usually you work harder as a soul uh as a sole trader in my experience. Yeah. Like I haven't worked since I left corporate. I think you know, I don't see it as work. You don't see it as work? Yeah, I don't see it as work. I just see it as something I do and I enjoy it, and I don't call it work. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Do you have a strong network around you?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, huge network, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Any particular people you like to call out in terms of who would be a strong network for you?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so so SASDOC, our business model is SAS, so we sell you know software as a service. Um so SASDOC is a basically an organization that uh organizes uh basically trade shows, uh, conferences and events. And there's a group of CEOs and founders that kind of meet regularly. And that's brilliant because as a CEO it can be a bit of a lonely job. Yeah. Um, you know, you kind of need to have uh people think you need to have all the answers and you've got to, you know, make decisions and sometimes yeah, it can be can can be lonely. But when when you meet a bunch of CEOs are in the software industry that are facing the same problems, etc., you know, it's great because one, you have lots of experience, but two, you just go, well, I'm not mad. I know it's not just me. It's not just me, yeah, yeah. Um it's not just me that thinks this way or acts this way or um has thinks about the same problems or has the same problems, but to meet a group like that. So that's been brilliant. The leadership for growth now is similar in that um it brings together and it's a more disparate group, so it's you know, we have people in that who are in college industry, who are in you know, tech, who are in services businesses, so uh it it's business agnostic. So that's even interesting from another point of view, because you see a whole different world where you know I'm always concerned about software as a service, that's you know the way it's so software engineering. Some companies don't even have an engineer in the business, like you know, and you're going, yeah, that's that's interesting just to see uh what challenges they have, and a lot of similarities and and differences, which uh which is which which is interesting. But that's a great network. And you know, I think like around my team is involved, like you say, is with more more so the uh the tech meetups and kind of local networks than I am. My networks tend to be a bit more probably international.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. You travel a lot. Travel an awful lot.
SPEAKER_01Like how many days of the year would would you feel like you're traveling? I feel like you're on the road a lot.
SPEAKER_02So I know I know you a couple of years ago I did 42 out of 52 weeks traveling. What? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So travel at least one flight in each week, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you're obviously connecting with a lot of people, learning a lot. How do you keep track of all the learnings? Like uh are what's your way of keeping yourself? Do you have a notepad or yeah, an iPad person? How are you keeping track of everything?
SPEAKER_02I'm old school notebooks, so I have a I write stuff down in a in in a notebook. I've tried to digitalise it many times, but I've merked as yeah, no. I just like scribbling and you know taking taking notes like that. And uh yeah, I've tried to get myself into the digital world and I've tried um you know different d different uh software, etc. But you know, an old school notebook and a pen. Oh I'm a pencil actually. Oh pencil, yeah, pencil. Really old school. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So uh yeah, and I just got my notes. I do have a horrible tendency to write on books. So when I'm reading books, I um yeah, yeah, I note on books and yeah, make references and underline and stuff like that, which uh my mother would kill me for doing that because uh you know books were sarcastic in my house, but uh have a tendency to do that.
SPEAKER_01This story really, or this suppose podcast series is about real people and real journeys in County Wexford, and you've certainly had an impressive one in in County Wexford. What's your I suppose moment you're most proud of or achievement you're most proud of?
SPEAKER_02Oh my kids I think are many four.
SPEAKER_01Four?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Wow. Yeah, extreme and everything. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01What ages?
SPEAKER_02Uh so uh yeah, Or Orla's twenty-two, we have twenty, sixteen, and fifteen.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god, are they f following in your footsteps?
SPEAKER_02Well Orla's doing marketing, Quiva's doing graphic design, then uh Rena and Kaelin in secondary school, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Do you mentor them? You can't do that at your document, yeah.
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_01But I say in time, they'll be looking for you to mentor them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so it's um probably a lot of eye rolling at me. Really? Yeah. I'm sure they're very proud of it. I think as I think as they get older, they go through a phase, of course. Uh yeah, I I have been asked for advice occasionally from my eldest, so yeah, it kind of comes back around.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you need that. What excites you the most about scurry in the future?
SPEAKER_02Uh it's the potential. I mean, you know, if we're doing something really serious, we talk about connecting commerce, so you know, if you think about it, when you get a parcel into your hands, um, that's I spoke about it a bit a little bit earlier. That's like where the digital becomes physical. So it's it's the fundamental difference between an online and offline sale. Like if you go into a shop, you buy something, you get the goods into your hand straight away. If you buy something online, it's a digital promise. You've seen a picture, it's not physical, you haven't seen it physically, and then the point when you get the parcel into your hand, that's where it becomes physical. So we facilitate that. So it's a really important part of it. And we call it connecting commerce. What we do is connecting commerce. Um and just that's exciting because there's so many things that you can do to to make that easier and simpler. So the more that we can speed up delivery, we can give people information about their deliveries, we can help them resolve any issues that they have, takes away the friction. And it's the friction that causes maybe uh buyer remorse and um gives people the challenge about buying online. So the more that friction that we reduce, uh the easier it is to actually uh to buy online. And that gives like buying online, I said like for local retail that has challenges, and I think people and retailers need to embrace online, but online gives us more choice. Yeah. And as humans we have more choice, it makes the world smaller, gives us the opportunity to equalize to have what you know others have. There is a challenge with consumerism and you know over you know kind of consumption, but that's a different issue with it. You know, to be able to get the goods that we need, whether it's books or stuff for your kids to go to school or whatever it is, the internet has made the world a smaller place and and made made it much more available to us so that we can learn and you know be probably even better people, like you know.
SPEAKER_01It's just convenience, really, isn't it, online? But obviously, you know in County Wexford Chamber we have a shop local gift card program as well, which we do a gift card to lock and bring fence money into the county. So it's a balance really, isn't it? You want to protect your local economy by protecting the footfall into the face-to-face retail environment, but then online is convenience when you're working as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, and so look, I mean, if somebody is buying like a lot of goods are here uh available in Wexford and it's convenience, yeah? Yeah. So, you know, I think consumers are not opposed to buying it here, it's just the convenience of having to go to the shop to get it. So I think that's where local merchants need to find ways to compete and you know look at digitalizing their offer. Okay. So, you know, if you can uh have some kind of arrangement where there's a pick-up drop-op location where somebody could pick it up, and it's uh it's you know, it's fast. I think that's what local retail needs to look at. There are innovative solutions there to help.
SPEAKER_01Um might pick your brain on that another time.
SPEAKER_02No problem.
SPEAKER_01So were we going back to the travel? Yeah. The travel 42 weeks out of one year you mentioned. I've done it before myself as well. It's it's not all glamorous, really, is it? It can be stressful with delays, it can be stressful with meeting so many people. How do you manage your well-being and keep your stress level? Because you're the leader of the company and people need you to be the strong one, so to speak.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, travel's not glamorous at all. I mean, you know, people who are not who don't travel say, oh, isn't it fantastic? You're going to the US or to, you know, um, you know, Germany or wherever, and think, you know, it's quite an exotic lifestyle. It's not, it's hard work and it's it it's challenging. Uh, I do like meeting people, it's something I get a great buzz off. So, you know, if you don't get energy from it, it's hard to do it. So I think that's the important thing. But if if you do get energy from it, I think you have to be uh organized um for travel. So there's a lot of stress in just the practical parts of travelling. So I never bring a bag in the hold. Just a simple thing. I've got caught so many times, so everything has to fit in a carry-on bag. Right. I have the exact same stuff goes into the bag all the time. I know exactly what I need in the bag, it's down down to a T, it's it's worked out. Checklist of stuff to good to go in. You know, you have things of like if you're traveling frequently, something is going to go wrong sometimes, or even like, you know, my passport is copied and my phone, my driver's licence is copied. You know, I have you know copies of a f actually physical copies stuck in the inside of my suitcase in case case something goes wrong. Um, so you need to be really, really organized, and that's the you know, suppose that's the practical part of it. I have a really great executive assistant, so Pauline, and that allows me as well to be organized. So organizing travel takes a huge amount of time, and things change, and you know, you maybe have to stay an extra day and things like that, and that is hard. So I have somebody that is really good at booking tickets, finding different ways to get places, stuff, and I don't have to worry about any of that because that when I was doing that, that was extremely stressful. Um, so it's something you know, I if I need to change something, I just need to make one phone call or a text or something I know that that's organized. And that may seem like you know a luxury, but actually it pays something like that pays back in space to have somebody that can organise. My diary is entirely organised by uh Pauline actually, so um I don't know where I'm going in two, three weeks' time. She organizes and I trust her implicitly. Like she will sit down with me and work out a month ahead, but that's all I've got to do, and you know, she organise. I just say I want to be there, I want to be there, I want to meet this person, and then she comes back and tells me when I'm going, where, at what time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, she knows what works for you now, I suppose, in terms of where you'd want to be and who you'd want to be in connection with.
SPEAKER_02And that takes all that stress because there was a lot of stress of kind of balance, you know, trying to organise people, etc. So now if somebody rings me and said, I want to meet you, I just pass them straight on. I don't start negotiating, trying to find spot time, and that freeze up time. Um and then like I do uh I do meditate. Um I meditate every day. Um so uh get up in the morning, uh try and get you know ten minutes of meditation clear, uh cleared ahead. Um I think that's that's really important. I try to exercise, I find that hard sometimes, with um uh but even just getting out for a walk uh for half an hour every day. Now I you know that falls by the wayside sometimes for a while, and you have to get back to it, etcetera. But if you can get you know half an hour of exercise and ten minutes meditation in every day while you're travelling, that's really important. And if you can do that, it makes it a lot easier.
SPEAKER_01Do you switch off? Do you do do you have fun activities or yeah, I do switch off.
SPEAKER_02So I shoot actually. So do you shoot? A rifle I I do um long distance rifle shooting. Wow. Yeah, and it actually is one of those things that you need to again, you need to be you know concentrate really hardly on. So you've got to block everything out when you're doing it, and I find that is yeah, exactly. And there's a bit of maths in it, and it's it's complicated, so it kind of means that you have to be totally focused on it to do it right, and um therefore it just everything kind of goes out of your mind. So I in my early uh days I spent 21 years in the reserve, in the army reserve. Oh, did you? Yeah, wow, um that's where I learned how to shoot and picked up the skills and I'm in a couple of uh clubs and uh I've actually I have a cap for I shooting for Ireland, um yeah. So Congrats. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That was to give you discipline in your life, did it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's discipline, yeah. I learned an awful lot from uh actually there's an awful lot to be learned from military life in terms of discipline and uh yeah and structure and structures and balance as well, of course.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I would recommend it to any young person to spend a couple of years in there. It's I think it's a great way to learn about uh a lot of things about yourself.
SPEAKER_01What about sea swimming in Duncan?
SPEAKER_02I love sea swimming, yeah. So again, another time you know, I used to do an awful, I used to do a lot of triathlon, so uh swimming, yeah, I love swimming, yeah. If I had time long distances, swimming again is another kind of zen thing uh that uh you need to concentrate on it, and anything like that is is good. I'd recommend it to anybody.
SPEAKER_01Excellent. Um I'm gonna ask you the three P's questions. Um so the first one is the person who is a business leader, colleague, or mentor that you most admire and has had a big impact on you?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there's been a few. One was Brian Patterson, who is one of the um senior members in Waterford Crystal, and he joined our board for a period of time, and Brian was chairman, amazing chairperson. He has worked in HR for a number of years, very focused on people, had to get the most out of people, great guy, very good with his time. And I think the second of David Dempsey is now our chairman, so I've had been really lucky with chairman, ex Salesforce, and again SAS Guru, and um have built Salesforce, uh one of the biggest software companies uh in in the world, and he's currently our chairman, uh tough chairman, but yeah, he has been really good. So both of those have been you know amazing mentors and uh supporters of the business.
SPEAKER_01That's great. You know, David's featuring on this podcast series. No, I didn't, but um that'll be brilliant. So he's featuring too. Okay, next one, next P is a place, and I think I know the answer to this, a location in Wexter that means a lot to you.
SPEAKER_02Well, Duncan means a lot. Yeah, yeah, I'm from Duncan means a lot to me. But I think which is really interesting is Hook Head. So the hook, yeah, which is you know, uh, you know, I can see from my house. I can and I have always been able to see the hook, you know, e uh well actually where we origin when I was originally from, I could see the light of the hook every night. Um I think it's amazing, like you know, that beacon. It's been a beacon for commerce, so it's been there to help shipping. It's a beautiful area, it's just the sc is so it's so scenic, and you know, a day like today it'll be flat calm and it'll be beautiful and still, and you get in the winter and the storms and it's absolutely ferocious and it's beautiful as well. So It's you know it's an amazing location, but it also has this amazing history. Um, you know, it that that light is shining for hundreds and hundreds of years, and I think it was actually that lighthouse was going at the same time as the original Seven Wonders of the World, the lighthouse in Greece. Yeah, so like it's stretching back that far. It's it's an amazing story. It's incredible, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01It's one of the probably the most popular attractions in County Wexford. And you have it on your eyeline for us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is pretty cool. Okay, the next one is the plea. So, what one thing would you ask government or policymakers to improve the business environment in Wexford and or Aris?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I think sometimes um our governments maybe don't think enough about you know the impacts of policies that it put in place, labour laws, etc. And I think sometimes they do things with the intention of it being good, and then it has the direct opposite effect. Like for instance, I think some of the housing policy that they have at the moment, you know, intention is good, but the actual way that they do it and over-regulate has the d direct opposite effect. Yeah. So, you know, the bridgetown scenario that we had, that was a direct causation of putting in legislation.
SPEAKER_01And not enough of a root cause around the actual problem.
SPEAKER_02Exactly, yeah. So knee-jerk reaction. I think just yeah, I understand, you know, public opinion, all that, but to think about it. I think we have the same in labor laws that there's increased impact that actually is not good. Uh the outcome is not good for employees in the longer term. Probation, for instance, the decrease in probation time means that people will make a decision quicker on people rather than giving them a chance.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I think it's you know it's those knee-jerk reactions don't have the desired result, has the direct opposite of the desired result, makes it very hard for employers to employ. Yeah. Rather than making it easy to employ.
SPEAKER_01Maybe they need to engage more with the chambers in terms of we are the voice of business in our counties and that's where we can represent. Um so yeah, we'll keep on that anyway. If you want a really nice meal in Wexford, what restaurant or hotel are you choosing?
SPEAKER_02Um well, I'm a bit biased. So um Aldridge Lodge is across the road from me. So um having out there. Oh, you need to be there.
SPEAKER_01What do you recommend on the menu?
SPEAKER_02There's usually seafood, so I need a seafood lobster. Um Billy's father catches lobster himself, so um yeah. And now there's usually months of awaiting this. It is that good. Really? Yeah, wow. Yeah, so but it it's definitely worth it trying to get in there. So plenty of awards, great food, great location, and uh definitely worth the uh worth the visit.
SPEAKER_01Worth the visit. Okay, I'll put it on my list. Are you a pint drinker?
SPEAKER_02I do drink pints, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Where would you go for a nice pint?
SPEAKER_02Roaches and Duncan. Roach is my favourite. Yeah. Bottom bar, Roaches and Duncan. I love the undertakers here, uh Mackenzie. Yeah, it's good, isn't it? Yeah, so yeah. Traditional bar, yeah. Uh Pints Bar, yeah. If you're drinking pints, that's the place to go.
SPEAKER_01Okay, and then a cleaner option, a coffee. Where'd you go for a coffee?
SPEAKER_02Oh, loads of great coffee locations in Wexford, uh, Wexford Roasters, just across the road from us. So yeah, we would go we would go there, yeah, a lot. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Support and local, love that. Rory O'Connor, thank you so much for your time. County Wexford's very proud of you and Scurry, and we hope you have lots more growth in the future.
SPEAKER_00Thanks a lot, Clona. Thanks for listening to this episode of Business Connections. For more information on County Wexford Chamber and how it is working to shape Wexford's future as a great place to work, live, and do business. Visit countywexfordchamber.ie. The recording of this podcast is supported by Leader.