Social Welfare for Graduate Startup

p.dolan_ire

As the title goes, myself and a classmate turned business partner (now that we have graduated) have been working on our business idea for the past 12 months - During college (4 months) and full time (8 months) having graduated in May. At the moment we are trying to generate some sort of income from part-time jobs on the weekends such as bar work etc...more or less anything that can keep us going!

I am wondering if anyone could give me some information in relation to allowance we could get while we are trying to start our business, or does this even exist? We have both graduated with a 1.1 BSc and like many of our fellow graduates we could have entered employment upon graduation as we both have "served our time" in summer internships for the past 2 years. Instead, we would love to set up our own company and try go it alone while we are young and there is far less risk involved.

We are in talks with EI about funding for the business and there are several grants available once we have been selected - however we are at the business validation stage now and are not ready for EI funding and so I am wondering if there are any alternative grants/allowances we could apply for. As we are earning literally pittance on the weekends and sacrificing hours that could be better spent on our startup, I would love to apply for a grant that could potentially supplement this "income" so we can still afford to live and commit more time to our business validation.

Any feedback or information would be GREATLY appreciated and thank you in advance!!

jimmii

The one you see a lot of people using is the Back to work enterprise allowance but unless you have been claiming for a while I don't think you will be entitled to this one. You could try supplementary welfare allowance that is designed to help people who don't have the means to meet their needs so if you are working on your business with little income you might be able to get something from that to make up the shortfall on what you need to live.

Fukuyama

As a recent graduate myself I'd advise you to forget about it.

Your only shot at social welfare support is to actively sit around for a year or so doing nothing, get onto the dole once you've been out of fulltime education long enough and then begin the process of applying for the allowance Jimmi mentioned above. Talk about encouraging startups, right!? :pac: Those who show initiative or drive aren't given a hand up, but those who study jam making and can't find a job after six months get a handout. Hmm.

I was in a similar position to yourself in May (finished college, started a business). I took a part-time job in an off licence to earn enough cash. Thankfully things have picked up with the business; I was able to take a small wage after a few months, left the off licence and can now focus 100% on the business.

If you can, try to pick up a few freelance gigs online if you have skills such as web design, coding etc... I did this for a while when I was between regular part-time jobs in college. It can be a good way to make a little money. However it can be like running a second business in itself....

CatFromHue

Best thing to do is trawl through the welfare.ie and/or go down to your local welfare office and ask them.

It sounds like you're still in the early stages of the business so maybe getting in touch with an incubator/hothouse would be a good idea.

Your college may even have one as alot do
http://www.dcu.ie/invent/index.shtml
http://www.nexusinnovation.ie/

Graham

thekidoflynn wrote: »

As the title goes, myself and a classmate turned business partner (now that we have graduated) have been working on our business idea for the past 12 months - During college (4 months) and full time (8 months) having graduated in May. At the moment we are trying to generate some sort of income from part-time jobs on the weekends such as bar work etc...more or less anything that can keep us going!

I am wondering if anyone could give me some information in relation to allowance we could get while we are trying to start our business, or does this even exist? We have both graduated with a 1.1 BSc and like many of our fellow graduates we could have entered employment upon graduation as we both have "served our time" in summer internships for the past 2 years. Instead, we would love to set up our own company and try go it alone while we are young and there is far less risk involved.

We are in talks with EI about funding for the business and there are several grants available once we have been selected - however we are at the business validation stage now and are not ready for EI funding and so I am wondering if there are any alternative grants/allowances we could apply for. As we are earning literally pittance on the weekends and sacrificing hours that could be better spent on our startup, I would love to apply for a grant that could potentially supplement this "income" so we can still afford to live and commit more time to our business validation.

Any feedback or information would be GREATLY appreciated and thank you in advance!!

Sounds like you're on the right track to be honest. Chasing limited grant funding can be a huge distraction that could easily soak up the time you're currently spending working on the business itself.

Are there any elements of your product/service that you could launch sooner to generate revenue? This would provide a double benefit, cashflow (obviously) and testing the market/your assumptions about the market.

If you're a year in development already, how much longer before you have a product?

p.dolan_ire

Thanks for replying to the thread guys - Jimmi, I'll look into those potential supports, realistically I'll need to go down to my local office and just see what there is available, sometimes you can't beat a face to face conversation with someone who might be able to give you the information, but from reading the threads and some research online I doubt there is much available at this time, similar to what Dean said.

Dean, myself and my business partner are trying to do some freelance marketing and design for some small businesses to generate some income that could indirectly add value to our startup. Like you said, it can nearly become a second business which requires a lot of time and maintenance in itself. On the upside, it's great to hear of other graduates starting their own businesses and also becoming successful by the sounds of things, well done! Thanks for you feedback. A

p.dolan_ire

Thanks CatfromHue for your feedback also - we have applied to different incubators in the greater Dublin area and waiting to hear back in the new year. The problem being you have to jump through hoops etc. to get accepted (part and parcel of the startup buzz which I don't mind) but in the interim it'd be nice to see the govt. supporting graduates who are trying to generate business and also create jobs in IRELAND as opposed to jumping on the next plane to Oz.

Graham, I would consider the business in development for about 8 months at this stage (previously it was coming up with names, domains, branding etc.) - we have started to launch an aspect of the business and yes, you're right, it does provide a double benefit but unfortunately the cashflow is not enough to sustain the two of us right now but yes it is validating our idea.

Our business is a type of marketplace and essentially the website allows users to broker deals between themselves (buyers and sellers) - as we are at business validation stage, we have started to broker these deals offline, which requires a lot of time and effort from our end but it is something we need to do in order to prove the model to EI. Once we are past validation, we need to build the site in order to leverage and scale the business so more deals can be brokered and we can charge less commission - helping with our USP.

Again, like I said to CatFromHue, it'd be nice if there were some more supports our there for graduate startups. I'll keep you guys posted on the progress and if I come across any sort of social welfare! Thanks, A.

NotaSheep

You could try the New Frontiers Programme - it is different to graduate CSF (which I presume is what you discussed with EI) in that you get a 15k 'compensation' for working on your business idea full time over 6 months. The only downside is as there is 2 of you it is still a single payment as it is per company, not per person, so if there is 2 of you, you may not find it sufficient. Anyway, might be worth a look. It is a competitive process and your business idea needs to be selected into Phase 2 to qualify for funding.