StartUs Presents: Training for Work

Describe Training for Work in 50 words or less.

We are a City & Guilds accredited Training Company based in Tralee, Ireland. Our Directors Caroline and Tim Desmond are award winning lecturers in their own right. Caroline and Tim were based in London until 2013 and emigrated to Ireland in 2013 in order to set up ‘Training for Work‘.

Why did you decide to pursue your own dreams rather than someone else’s?

Our dreams are flexible – and as such we are quite willing to share dreams. If by proxy someone else realises their dreams through us…no problem!

I am not sure we have a dream, we have a very existential view on life. We make the best we can out of each day and see where that leads to. As an avid Chess player (or I was!!) I believe in putting pieces in the best positions – I feel we are in the best position possible at this time. I see life and career building as a board game – a mixture of Snakes and Ladders, Monopoly and Chess.

7 years from now: How did your startup change the world?

We are not looking to change the world. We would like to see our students go on to have a happy and fulfilled life, and hopefully in some small way our input will have assisted that process.

In 7 years time we would hope to keep up to speed with technological advancement, and hope to impart our knowledge to our students, so they like us, will have a thirst for knowledge that can be quenched, rather than drying up due to a lack of opportunity.

In what ways do you measure your success and how do you make sure you don’t lose track?

I am not inclined to measure success as I have seen very ‘successful’ people who are very miserable and vice versa. Success seems to assume that life has a pass mark or a full stop. My view is life has neither. What appears to be success can as time unwinds prove to be the opposite. Where as ‘failure’ can be enriching for the spirit and a priceless lesson.

Describe your typical working day from coming to the office to leaving it.

We currently have a contract delivering Training at several special needs schools including St Ita’s & St Joseph’s Tralee. The work is hard but very rewarding. My role is to assure quality so I oversee the quality of the provision – with the mantra of ‘continuous improvement’ as my daily creed.

My wife Caroline does most of the Lecturing and Assessing. However this is purely because at the moment most of the areas we cover are within Caroline’s remit. This will change as we go forward.

Already pivoted? Did customers use the training company like you imagined it in the beginning?

We had a very open mind as to how things would evolve to begin with. You never know what fate has in store, we just put ourselves in positions of maximum opportunity. As an example of this concept Caroline was exhibiting her Jewellery in the local library in November 2014, when a Lecturer from St Ita’s and St Joseph’s happened along, and during the course of conversation it became clear our services would be ideal for St I&J. We discussed things with the Head and ‘Bingo’ we were off and running. Right time right place!

Bootstrapped or financed: What fuels your startup now and what will in the future?

We are currently self-financing and making profit. Ideally though we would like to achieve funding through Erasmus or other European funding regimes. Sean Kelly MEP thought our idea of Vocational Training for learners with mild to moderate learning difficulties had a high degree of merit. Alternatively an angel investor would be welcome. There is a lot of opportunity within Ireland for private training, as state sponsored training is currently at the limit of its provision in many areas. Any suggestions on funding or angel investors are very welcome!

With ferocious competition and a booming trend to build new companies: How do you make sure you don’t get lost in the shuffle?

We don’t have a lot of competition in the subject areas we train – however we do not rest on our laurels and we continuously advertise in the local papers, social media, and our website. We feel the City and Guilds accreditation separates us from the rest, as the accreditation is contingent on the Directors holding appropriate qualifications which are difficult and time consuming to achieve. Therefore our company is difficult to imitate and creates a niche for us within the South West of Ireland.

What do you look for in team members?

We believe learning should be fun. Not that we don’t take it seriously – but students generally learn well when the atmosphere is lucid and light hearted. Therefore we would look for a progressive yet easy going dynamic from team members, who are driven by enthusiasm rather than fear, and transmit this enthusiasm and a thirst for knowledge to our students.

Why would a talent join your team?

Because we are knowledgeable, approachable, enthusiastic and fair. We have vast experience delivering Training programmes for corporate companies and colleges throughout London and the South East of England. Therefore our experience is plural and varied racially, intellectually and spiritually. Simply we have a lot to offer.

What was your most memorable moment so far?

We try and engender the rapport and spirit of a building site during our construction programmes. This is to best prepare students for the work place not just from a knowledge perspective but so as to train how things are from a real life perspective. One Friday afternoon when cleaning up one of the students was singing when one by one other students joined in – it was really quite touching yet amusing! Even though our students have special needs from an intellectual perspective, their singing was second to none!

What advice would you give fellow founders for their startup?

As all of the above. Look at the process as a board game, put yourself in positions of maximum opportunity, have an open mind, be driven by enthusiasm and not fear, keep things light hearted and loose – fortune favours the brave, work hard but not too hard so things get dogged.

Most of all don’t give up. If one idea does not work allow it to morph into another, serendipity has a strong dynamic force pushing you toward the answer. Keep things real – don’t overspend, don’t underspend!