It is week six of eight for the startups inside The Irish Times. Each has entered the The Irish Times Digital Challenge in the hope of launching new products and services with the 153 year old news paper, and each hopes to be the winner of the €50,000 convertible loan note prize from DFJ Espirit. However, with two weeks to go, it's getting tough.
The good news for The Irish Times is that every one of the five startups looks like it is going to launch something. For a large organisation this is a remarkable achievement. Clearly, the incubation model works.
This week Gerard O'Neill of Amarach Research worked with the startups to help them understand their customers. Amarach specialises in focus group and survey research, and this Edward Bernays treatment of the startups offering is key to their longer term success beyond the eight weeks inside The Irish Times.
Also this week Johnny Harte met each startup and goes through their financials. Some of the startups have to rethink their pricing.
Week 6: Two weeks left in The Irish Times Digital Challenge
It is worth recapping on where each of the startups are:
Martin from Storyflow finally has a prototype that he is happy with.
Paul and Christian are going to work on The Irish Times' first ever e-book, but hear some feedback on their proposition from the director of advertising.
GetBulb's cross-media data visualisation solution throws up some internal challenges for The Irish Times. Oliver is unsure about progress.
After an initial success, Freda from MyiFli is having difficulty getting traction with her product.
The advertising director at The Irish Times says he'd like to buy KnockOn.ie if he were MD. So far so good for Rob from KnockOn, but he is still trying to lock down a major sponsor.
You can see previous weeks updates below.
Week 5
Week 4
Week 3
Week 2
Week 1
Note: these videos are posted several weeks after real events.