This week is DLR Enterprise Week with a lot of events every day. Check our their website Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Enteprise Week 2009. I hope it’s not too late for me to write this post. There are still quite a few events left such as networking, incubation spaces info, shows, workshops and awards.

What will happen with your loans, debts and credit cards after you die or get serious illness? What will happen to your company shares? Do you have the best pension deal or you are loosing money? Do you want to invest, but don’t know where?

I met Joe O’Regan, owner of Oregan Financial, today and was really impressed. We went through my private and my companies finances and came up with ideas how to improve things (e.g. get life insurance). Consultation itself is for free, so I advise it to anyone wandering about their finances. It’s great way to think where you can save money. Oregan doesn’t try to sell right away and gives you a really good advice. They are using BestAdvice.ie site for latest insurance, pension etc. deals. I found it really great website, but you have to have membership to access information.

So what should you do next? You should go to Oregan Financial website and get a free consultation about your finances.

I have always problems explaining people what our company does. Not because I don’t know what it does, but because other people isn’t knowledgeable enough to understand the concept. If I say “eBusiness” – people don’t know the term. If I say “business process optimisation” – they think we aren’t IT company. If I say “we do web development”, they usually reply “ah, web design”. Wrong! (Of course we do web design too, but it’s not our main business…)

So I met my mentor last week and he told me that people do not care how I call it – websites are still websites. They want their project done and they don’t care how we build it. And he asked question which made me think – “Which comes first design or development?”.  By logic and all the good concepts I and probably most of you would reply “design”. But is it true in agile development?

I searched a bit over the net and found one really good article about it. And now what I think is that in agile development pilot project comes first. Pilot project is proof of concept that developed idea can work. You can argue that it should have some design anyway, but it’s just something to get ideas from for the finalised design.

Agile development is test-driven. You write tests first and only then code and then design. Have I proved my point? Any ideas about this?

“The Irish Internet Association (IIA) is the professional body for those conducting business via the internet from Ireland. It has been and remains one of the driving forces behind the adoption of the medium. Established in 1997, the IIA provides leadership to enterprises and society conducting business in Ireland.”

Last year we joined different associations and networking groups but couldn’t meet our target audience through them. I believe IIA is the right choice for us, see post about joining at IIA blog.

First things first – Happy New Year to everyone who haven’t received greetings from me yet.

While going through a lot of other blogs, I decided that I should write small post about my 2008 year.

I fell in love… with my company. It was very neutral at first. I didn’t thought the company will need me that much. I left my job in AIB on April and started our relationship.

It has it’s bad sides – pile of papers when you want to free your desk or a lot of reports, when you just want to rest. I should tell big thanks to people who helped me through and showed me the way to be what I am.

It has some good sides too and money is not the biggest of it. I got passion to go forward and to achieve things I always wanted to. People I meet is so interesting and doing business with them is fun. I’m boss to myself now. It gives freedom and constraints. I can do what I want and there is a lot of things I can do. And then there is so much thing that should have been done, but I don’t know about them. Learning about them is the most important thing I have achieved.

I should say that I was too optimistic at start. I never thought about how hard it is just to tell people, what I’m doing. And how it is to rewrite business plan again and again. An introvert person like me going and talking to other people I don’t know? How to get over “I hate calling people”?

I believe that next year will be better because there is less things I don’t know. And thought there is economic crisis, try and stop our company from growing! \(^^)/

While I was ignoring the fact that there are some economic problems in Ireland, it’s getting harder not to notice it. DLREB are providing at least one great seminar per month. Usually they are free and early in the morning. I went to the one on Wednesday and they talked on mostly how to get debts back, how to insure your business and how to ensure that you have steady income. So some points that I wanted to note from it

• Economic crisis will continue for next 1-2 years
• Companies should manage risks and profitability regulary
• Credit Unions might be more open for business loans then banks at the moment
• Companies should build good relationship with bank relationship manager (for loans, credits and other difficulties)
• It is important to get mentors from enterprise boards. They have big experience and might help a lot.
• Evaluation of companies are going down. Even angel investors might not invest so much any more.

I also heard for the first time term of Escrow. Might be good thing if we want to trade aboard.

I know Christmas is 22 days away, but I’m already getting into Christmas parties. I love them, because I can talk and talk, and talk… till I loose my voice. Without free wine you also get to know news in business, you get new contacts, potential clients and at the end of the day you get to communicate with real people (not computers).

DLREB Women Enterprising network is event that happens once a month. Quite often it happens together with other groups like Trading Post, Brite or Link! All members get access to internal networking portal, get chance to network and introduce themselves to others.

The good thing about Christmas parties – there is always some prizes to be won. I won Dinner for two in Beacon hotel + Bottle of wine. I will be enjoying networking events even more now. And I met great people – ones I did knew like my mentor and organisers, ones I didn’t knew but could talk about great stuff and one’s that would be interested in my business and could bring me some revenue. I’m happy about all of them. Because contacts in business is everything you need.

Cheers! Going for another Enterprise seminar early tomorrow… have to get some sleep.

Today I finally got my head around stamps and seals. I’m really happy about it now.

Every company has to have company seal. We didn’t got ours because we registered our company ourselves. And nobody told us that we have to have one.

Now after one year of company registration, we wanted to get company stamp. One of our contractors needed it. I read article over Irish Business Women forum, which said that company seal is the same as company stamp. I called my legal adviser and he provided us with official company who creates seal. So on Monday I got seal. And of course it wasn’t stamp. So I still couldn’t put stamp on the contract.

I called my accountant and he was very surprised that we didn’t get seal at the company registration. I said that now I need stamp for sure. He led me to Vista Print company and there was about 50 different stamp kinds. I remember from Latvia that all the stamps where red and round. I couldn’t find any like that on the site.

I talked with accountant again and he said that company stamp isn’t legal thing as anyone can order it with the same details. It should be rectangular and have to have companies name and address (optional reg.no.). So I ordered the simplest one and maybe this week I will be able to put stamp on that contract. Companies stamps however are requested by banks and some other legal institutions.

I’m wondering – is it only me who got confused over things or there really isn’t enough information out there?

Update: due to my blog coming up everytime someone searches for “company seal” I added picture for better clarification on how does company seal look like.

Yesterday Inspired IT Awards took place in the Mansion House. Our company was invited as we got short-listed for “SME Project of the Year Award”. Venue was completely terrific with star-light on ceilings, colorful lights all over place and professional staff. We got complimentary wine and amazing food.

Thought we didn’t win award, I’m happy to be short-listed. Inspired IT Award 2008 went to AIB for Olympus programme.

Here is some pictures:

I’m all exited over tomorrows Inspired IT Awards Gala Dinner 2008. It is very official black tie evening till late at night. I really hope I will get some award and I’m happy that we got short-listed. I went shopping today and bought the best coat in my life. I haven’t been shopping for ages as I’m always so busy with business stuff. Awards was a good excuse to buy something.

Wish me luck tomorrow and I will post some photos of evening later.