We continue to inquire into the heart of Dublin's tech startup community, which is untroubled even if the financial world is collapsing outside
Liffey Walk - aka 'The barrel in a cube' [on R] and the harp [bridge on left]'. Photo by @ANDYwithCAMERA on Flickr. Some rights reserved
You'd struggle to find a more optimistic symbol of Dublin's startup community than Dylan Collins, the charismatic entrepreneur who's graduated through three exits in eight years.
Fidgeting around in his seat at the Science Gallery cafe in Trinity College, Collins wants us to know that Dublin has a bigger cluster of online gaming firms than the UK.
"One of the secrets we seem intent on keeping is that Ireland is now one of the biggest online gaming hubs in the world," he says. "Without any spin whatever we have some of the biggest guys in the world supporting their European activities, legitimising the location. In terms of the companies located here, volume of people and profile of those companies, there's a bigger cluster here than in the UK."
The list is certainly impressive. For starters: Blizzard, CrowdStar, Gala, Riot Games, Zynga and Playfish, plus EA has set up a centre in Galway to develop for its Star Wars game and Facebook ? the world's biggest gaming platform ? which now has its only developer support centre outside Silicon Valley. And then there's the online poker guys, like PocketKings.
Collins, like nearly all the entrepreneurs we have met in Dublin this week, brushes aside any idea that the economic crisis might be bad news for the internet startup community. "Zero. It won't have any impact at all, in fact will probably make things a bit better. The internet startup space here was never funded heavily by the state, and because the cost of starting internet companies continues to get lower, it means the impact of any state cuts won't be felt."
People losing their jobs might be even more inspired to work for startups, he suggested, where they at least work for themselves or for a small motivated team.
Collins himself only graduated from Trinity College in 2002, promptly selling the SMS software startup Phorest ? that became exit number one. He ploughed that money into creating Demonware in 2003, and sold the 'deepware technology firm' ? which enables multiplayer gaming between different consoles ? to Activision Blizzard in 2007. Then he founded consumer-focused online games firm Jolt, which sold late last year to games retail chain GameStop. Now he has he time and money to play, he's mentoring a handle of smaller startups and putting time into Gruupy, a group discount sites for gadget fans.
One of an impressive flourish of startups that turned out for the Guardian Tech last night, Gruupy has a similar buzz about it as Moo does in London ? a quirky and oddly physical business for something that's a favourite among the community of tech heads.
Pouring into a basement bar in one of the forest of sleek new buildings on Dublin's quayside, we have sifted through dozens of pitches and ideas tonight with some clear standout businesses. Here's a taster:
Tunepresto is a brilliant and simple automated soundtrack composition tool for online video; britebill builds visualisation and integration for online billing (think Mint.com for utilities); Plendi offers image processing for receipts and expenses; and OnePage CRM is a thorough and well organised CRM manager with a superb user interface.
There's plenty more to be said, though. Stay tuned...
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/nov/24/online-games-dublin
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