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For his book, Driving the Tiger, Irish Enterprise Spirit, John Travers interviewed Chris Horn, co-founder of IONA Technologies. In this excerpt, Horn talks about the development of the company, which makes computer integration products, and its appeal to future entrepreneurs.
Encouragement of university enterprise
Commercialization of research and development is important to ensure a beneficial return from investment. Trinity College Dublin (TCD) started the campus company scheme in 1984 to help bring research applications to the market. The university was keen to exploit results. At one time, some academics would approach the university seeking support and equity to launch a business. When they did not get it, they left and launched a business anyway. TCD realized it was losing both valuable expertise and the opportunity to become involved in successful businesses. Now a promoting officer vets each business proposal and gives seminars to explain the scheme and the opportunities of bringing research to full fruition through commercialization.
Initially, the majority of worthwhile business opportunities came from work on drugs and pharmaceuticals in the biochemistry department. Several companies were set up and spun off. Soon other departments saw the virtues of the scheme. One interesting venture, called Maptec, manipulated satellite images and provided geographical mapping services. Launching campus companies is a great way to motivate and incentivize researchers, while also providing revenue for continued research.
Other Irish universities are implementing similar commercialization schemes, all of which have been inspired by similar activities in Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). MIT has a tremendous facility for innovation. Its campus in Boston is a Mecca for top engineering and scientific talent, and the collective brainpower has resulted in breakthrough technological advances. In particular, I am impressed with the Boston-based MIT Media Lab, which recently opened a European research laboratory in Dublin. MediaLabEurope is the laboratory for the digital future. The combined student body and faculty will number 250 and form a highly creative environment. Research projects will address such things as the interconnection between bits, people, and objects in an online world and the prospect of giving objects the intelligence to "think." For instance, by sensing the movements of their owners, devices such as refrigerators, toasters, and doorknobs will be able to communicate with each other and solve local problems. It is exciting to think about. The theory is that setting up this facility in Ireland will encourage large multinationals to fund MediaLabEurope, which will in turn encourage additional domestic research. Furthermore, the technology advances made by MediaLabEurope will provide opportunities for new Irish technology enterprises to start up in order to exploit the technology breakthroughs that are achieved. The investment price is a steep one—the government is committed to investing some £130 million over ten years. Time will tell if it is a wise investment or one that might have been channeled directly, and more profitably, into purely Irish research initiatives in universities and domestic companies.
IONA benefited from the TCD campus company scheme, and in March 1991 we received enough funding to start the company in a small 15- by 8-foot office on the campus. In these early Trinity days, we undertook various projects unrelated to the mission at hand. For example, we delivered courses on Fortran to the Irish Meteorological Office, ran C++ courses for ICL and the U.K. Customs Authority and worked on consulting projects for the EU.
IONA people
In the early years, we hired a lot of graduates straight from university. I found that this was to the detriment of maturity. As our organization has grown and acquired bigger customers, the demands on the quality of our worldwide operations and business process have become very high. Now we tend to hire people who have ten or fifteen years of experience and who bring greater maturity and expertise. Our Irish and U.S. staff share a similar outlook. The same forces in the industry drive them. They are very creative in providing new technology solutions. There is a lot of movement and interaction between Dublin and Boston, so we are well integrated and speak the same language.
| Iona has provided a launching-pad for at least fifteen new companies. |
| — Chris Horn |
Quite a few people join us with a view to understanding how a company such as ours works, with the intention of doing something similar one day themselves. IONA has provided a launching pad for at least fifteen new companies. That reflects a tremendous enthusiasm and sense of enterprise in the people who work for us. I am delighted to see these new companies launch themselves independently into the fray of Ireland's rich new enterprise culture. It is good to know that we hired young people with the spirit and desire to create something new, turning innovative ideas into commercial successes and showing the grit and determination to set out in enterprises of their own. IONA benefited from that same spirit while they worked here, and I wish them every bit of luck on their own. Many of those who have started their own companies felt that a company of 800 people was too big. They preferred to work with 5, 10, or 15 people. Now that IONA is established, we cannot afford to take the type of risks we took in the early days. We have built safety nets and find that some people are not prepared to stay in a safe environment where we will not place an "all or nothing" bet on their ideas.
One company for which I have great hopes for the future is Cape Clear. The three founders, Chief Executive Officer David Clarke, Chief Operating Officer John McGuire and Chief Technical Officer Hugh Grant, are all former executives of IONA. Annraà O'Toole, co-founder of IONA, and Colin Newman, former vice-president of marketing at IONA, also left the company in late 2000 to join Cape Clear as executives, with Annraà taking a leading role as executive chairman. Cape Clear [is] entering a new area of Internet development by providing infrastructure technology that will enable Internet applications to interact more freely, creating in essence an "invisible Internet." In April 2000, Cape Clear generated first round funding from institutional investors of $2 million, and IONA subsequently made a minority investment. Cape Clear is just one example of countless new Irish high-tech enterprises that are exciting to watch.
Other people join us because it is an opportunity to work with a leader in the software technology industry. They have the chance to develop interesting software in what is still a relatively small company by global standards. All the people who join us will have one thing in common—strong customer focus. They will work on products that will see the light of day in a large market. We are not yet rich enough and do not have enough surplus resources to be able to just play with something that will not be presented to the customers.
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Six Questions for John J. Travers
Andrea Schulman: How did you get the idea for the book?
John J. Travers: I had been living in The Netherlands for some years and had enjoyed an objective perspective on Ireland's recent economic boom. Every week the newspapers ran stories of the latest Irish enterprise success story and of young people throwing away their inhibitions and starting new companies with a newfound enthusiasm and energy. I realized that a very special enterprise spirit was emerging throughout Ireland on a rising crest of national confidence. Much had been written about the political and macro-economic factors contributing to Ireland's economic success but little had been written about the individual people who were shaping and progressing the country with their enterprise spirit. What better way to capture that spirit than to interview the people who personified it and compile their stories in a book?
Q: What do you think accounts for the resurgence of Irish enterprise from the 1990s?
A: Irish people have always shown a flair for enterprise in countries to which they emigrated, such as the U.S. However, in Ireland that enterprise spirit lay dormant until the right environment and conditions had evolved. The crafting of sensible economic policy since the 1960s that has enabled Ireland to become Europe's fastest growing economy throughout the 1990s laid the foundation for an enterprise spirit to take root and the confluence of several factors such as foreign investment of capital and knowledge, greater venture capital activity, and a highly educated and flexible work force, enabled the enterprise spirit to flourish.
Q: How did you choose your interview subjects?
A: I wanted to choose a great diversity of enterprise leaders. Their enterprises are as varied as imaginable, from telecoms to fashion design; from sandwich bars to bodyart; from managing international music stars to developing a regional airline, with cutting edge technology and Internet development side by side with Riverdance and motor racing. All of their stories are extraordinary and yet, of course, they are ordinary people who are down to earth and easy to relate to.
Q: To the provincial American reader, these aren't household names. Do you think we'll be learning more about them soon? Are there any in particular who you think will have a global impact on business?
A: I am sure that the activities of many of these people are well known in the U.S. For instance, the creator of Riverdance, Moya Doherty, is featured, and sports fans will know Eddie Jordan, the founder of the Jordan Formula 1 racing team. Technology companies founded by some of the featured people employ tens of thousands of people in their subsidiaries in the U.S. Even if some of the people are not known, their stories are universal in the humanity of their struggle to overcome personal and professional challenges and to define their own lives through their enterprise.
Q: What do you think American entrepreneurs could learn from the Irish?
A: In truth, it is to the U.S. that Irish entrepreneurs have so often looked for an example. If there is something unique about the Irish entrepreneurs I have met, it is a particularly Irish blend of three characteristics that have enabled them to succeed: ability, imagination, and passion. Moreover, each has a wish to give back to the community and environment that has shaped them, whether through educational programs, cultural initiatives, or direct charity work. I think that this social awareness—that one is a member of a community rather than a sole individual—is a healthy approach.
Q: What are your own plans after Harvard Business School? Will you be joining the ranks of the entrepreneurs?
A: I look forward to starting work with McKinsey in September. I will always be on the lookout for the right time and opportunity to engage in entrepreneurial adventures and plan to keep up the writing too.
— Andrea Schulman, HBS Working Knowledge