Tadhg Guiry, Evolve Marketing
This is a DCU Business School Blog Post. The original blog can be found here.
“It’s a myth that all business owners ran lemonade stands when they were 6 years old. I know I was too busy being a kid to be out hustling on the streets.
In fact, a lot of business owners only see the entrepreneurial path as an option a lot later in life. I only saw it when i was in DCU business school.
Take Colonel Harland David Sanders for example, the founder of KFC, who started his business journey with KFC at the ripe age of 62 all the way back in 1952.
Personally, my own realisation on wanting to be a business owner came a little earlier than Colonel Harland (but not when I was 6 years old), and it happened while I was in DCU.
While in school, I was an ideas person. You know the kind, they come up with great society shifting ideas with their friends but never consider executing on anything.
However, once I moved to DCU and with the help of a passionate class, great teachers and multiple engaging year long business projects I realised that owning, running and growing a real business was well within my grasp.
Now I’ll admit, I’m still extremely new to owning and running a business. I started my agency Evolve Marketing in 2018 and I’ve a lot still to learn, but a lot of the foundations for it were built between 2011 and 2015 while I was studying Marketing, Innovation and Technology.
My business works specifically within the legal sector helping firms grow the private side of their practice through online client acquisition campaigns. We like to think we’re helping firms evolve into the digital age.
The reason for the specialisation with law firms also stems from my time in DCU, I encountered their traditional approach to marketing while working on my DCU intra placement during the third year of my degree.
This internship allowed me to work closely with a lot of law firms and so I could observe the problems and issues that owners of small and mid sized firms were dealing with everyday.I banked a lot of that market knowledge and it has been the backbone to a lot of the business decisions I’ve made in trying to grow Evolve Marketing.
Our next big challenge in growing the business has been to establish a presence in the US. Last year, we were able to take our first steps into the US market but we want to substantially grow our presence throughout 2020.
The US felt like a natural progression as myself and my business partner Ruairi have both lived and worked for startups in Austin, Texas after we graduated from our respective degrees.We’re making it our aim to grow vertically as we’re not interested in managing a huge team or office, we’re happy out in our co working space Huckletree on Pearse St. There is no doubt that there will be challenges and growing pains as we progress but we’re looking forward to it all.
We know the US is a big fish to tackle and there are definite nuances that we will have to be aware of but we’re confident there’s opportunities we can take advantage of.
Our goal is to be the best at what we do; client acquisition in the legal field. Once we do that, who knows what doors will open as we go.
We want to work with people who are passionate, driven and creative in everything they do. A bit like picking your team for a project in DCU.
Find out more about BSc in Marketing Innovation Technology here.”
For the full interview with the DCU Business School team, please see below.
