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E235 That Great Business Show - Switching business success from 30% to 70%, Martin Duffy, Hibernia-Lab & Food, one tough, tough business, Margaret Dineen, Blue Sky Food
Season 1, Ep. 235
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Episode 235 That Great Business Show
UCD Smurfit Business School, 'Podcast of the Year'
An investment company that says they’re aiming to defy the "accepted norm", by flipping 70% failure, to a 70% success rate
MARTIN DUFFY is General Partner with Hibernia-Lab, at Dublin based early stage venture labs ecosystem that, inter alia, conducts 'thorough market research' develops ‘a unique value proposition’, identifies growth opportunities for almost any business, 'differentiates your brand', and maximises your businesses' market potential. Its investments appears positively eclectic with a portfolio of more than ten investments that includes a company that advises rugby teams, and another, called Team Taca (backed by dad and daughter team of Niall and Aisling Quinn) that has created a platform for youth soccer clubs. Hibernia-Lab has also worked with Leinster Rugby at Syracuse University.
Martin covers an awful, awful lot about business on this episode.
His 'hires in a heartbeat'? The late Nicola Tesla or the very much alive (and That Great Business Tip for the Top) Emma Meehan of Precision Sports Technology
Margaret Dineen - Food Whisperer
We like feature so many early stage food companies on the podcast as they make business accessible and understandable, whether we’re talking about buying, selling, marketing or doing deliveries. Lessons learnt from making bread, no matter what your industry, can make you bread.
Accountant Margaret Dineen is a food business whisperer. Her business Blue Sky Food Consulting, is a supply chain and commercial finance advisory service. Her other business, The Irish Food Trade Connect Forum is a Food and Drinks nationwide platform for trade development for the Irish Food and Drinks industry.
Her 'hire in a heartbeat'? Niamh Lenehan, CEO, Agri-Food Regulator
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288. E288 That Greats Business Show - Selling online? This episode could save you €8,000 A MONTH. Ciaran Crean, WaveOMS
33:48||Season 1, Ep. 288Everyone talks about marketing.Nobody talks about the warehouse.And yet the warehouse is where e-commerce businesses either scale… or collapse.You can build the most beautiful website in the world.Spend a fortune on advertising.Drive traffic through Shopify, Amazon, TikTok.But if your warehouse can’t keep up?You’re finished.Orders late.Customers furious.Margins gone.On Episode 288 of That Great Business Show, Conall Ó Móráin talks to Ciaran Crean, co-founder of WaveOMS and co-owner of MicksGarage.com, one of Ireland’s biggest online retailers.Ciaran lives in the engine room of online retail — the messy, chaotic, expensive part that nobody puts on the glossy marketing slides.And the numbers are eye-watering.One company using his system cut warehouse staff from 6 to 2 and saved £8,000 every single month.But the real shock?Many warehouses in 2026 still operate like this:• orders printed on paper • workers walking the floor ticking boxes • labels printed manually • mistakes annoying 2–3% of customersYes. Really.In this episode:• The hidden chaos inside many warehouses • Why most retailers underestimate logistics • How bad warehouse systems destroy margins • The critical role of barcodes in e-commerce • Why efficiency beats marketing in online retail • The one mistake Irish businesses keep makingIf you sell anything online — or plan to — this conversation might save you a fortune.That Great Business Show is proudly supported by De Facto Shaving Oil.Not beard oil.Shaving oil.For shaving any and all of your bits.DeFactoShave.comOur Gentleman’s (and ladies’) Agreement is simple:We do the work.You hit subscribe.Fair exchange.
287. E287 That Greats Business Show - Olympian Colin Jackson: Why I Don’t Even Like Sport (and other business tips)
35:40||Season 1, Ep. 287Most people think Olympic champions love sport.Colin Jackson says something shocking on Episode 287 of That Great Business Show with Conall Ó Móráin.He admits he didn’t even want to be in front of the camera… and he doesn’t really like sport the way people think he does.Instead we talk about:• how dreaming creates opportunity• why aligning with winners matters• the brutal lesson he learned at the Olympics• why confidence can destroy you• the real difference between champions and the rest of us• what business leaders can learn from elite athletesJackson also tells the extraordinary story of crashing Daley Thompson’s Porsche and what the Olympic legend taught him about life.This conversation was recorded live at the National Concert Hall with thanks to the Welsh Office at the British Embassy in Dublin.Sponsored by De Facto Shaving Oil — the world’s best shaving oil. Not beard oil. For shaving all your bits.They back us. You back them.DeFactoShave.comOur Gentleman’s Agreement:We do the work. You hit subscribe. Fair exchange.
286. Episode 286 That Great Business Show: Lessons from how Ryanair runs its business — Caroline Kirrane
38:56||Season 1, Ep. 286Most business owners think profit means success.It doesn’t.ON Episode 286 of That Great Business Show, Conall Ó Móráin sits down with Caroline Kirrane, CFA, former Central Bank economist, and the person Irish executives call when they realise they’ve been nodding at spreadsheets they don’t understand.This episode explains, in plain English: • Why profit is not cash • How fast growth can bankrupt you • The silent danger of “bad revenue” • Why Ryanair’s ruthless simplicity is a masterclass in strategy • The real reason businesses run out of money while sales are boomingIf you run a business in Ireland, the UK or anywhere with invoices and overdrafts, this episode could save you.Sponsored by De Facto Shaving Oil — made in Mayo, sold to the world.285. E285 That Greats Business Show - The Gaeltacht Advantage - Tomás O Síocháin, CEO, Udarás na Gaeltachta
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284. E284 That Greats Business Show - The Freelance Trap: Why Your “Income” Isn’t Your Income, Sinead Doherty, Fenero
36:37||Season 1, Ep. 284Ireland has roughly 350,000 self-employed people — many of them solo. The problem is not talent. The problem is financial control.Sinéad Doherty, CEO & Founder of Fenero, explains the realities she sees every day supporting independent earners:“Going solo doesn’t mean going alone” — the ecosystem you must buildWhy revenue is not your incomeThe simplest habit to avoid tax shock: separate the tax moneyCashflow discipline, invoicing speed, and the small expenses people forget to claimThe networks and programmes that actually help you get tractionIf you’re self-employed, this is the episode that stops the panic and replaces it with a system.Sponsored by De Facto Shaving Oil. DeFactoShave.com.
283. Episode 283 – Mary Sadlier, CEO of Coole Swan: Building a Global Irish Brand When the Shelves Fight Back
47:05||Season 1, Ep. 283Episode 283 of That Great Business ShowWe normally do a 25 minute record. We thought this was sooo good that it's 47 minutes. Because who wants to spoil a great party. We didn't want to stop Mary.Mary Sadlier, CEO of Coole Swan — the Irish cream liqueur brand that decided it wasn’t enough to be “nice”. It had to be better. And not better in a marketing-deck way. Better in taste tests. Better in ingredients. Better in margins. Better in resilience.Coole Swan uses single malt Irish whiskey and Belgian white chocolate. That matters. Because when you go up against Baileys, you are not nibbling around the edges. You are walking into a category owned by a global giant.This episode is about:• What it really takes to build an Irish FMCG brand internationally• Why distribution is harder than the product• What happens when tariffs land out of nowhere• Retail shelf power — and how fast you can disappear from it• The brutal difference between cashflow and profitMary has been through the mill. Expansion. Contraction. Currency swings. US volatility. Decisions made without guarantees.Things have gone very right.Things have gone very wrong.And the gap between the two is thinner than most founders think.This is real business. Not pitch-deck business.Brought to you by our long-standing sponsor, De Facto Shaving Oil. The world’s best shaving oil. Not a beard oil. For shaving any and all of your bits. They back us, you back them. DeFactoShave.com.Our Gentleman’s (and Ladies’) Agreement is simple: we do the work, you hit subscribe. Fair exchange.282. E282 That Great Business Show - AI is so yesterday. It's all about Quantum and Jason Lynch's Equal1 has raised $60 million to prove it.
31:35||Season 1, Ep. 282Episode 282 — Quantum Is Coming. And Ireland Is Already In It.Everyone is shouting about AI.Very few people are paying attention to what comes next.Quantum computing is not about doing things faster.It is about doing things that were previously impossible.Finding new drugs in days, not decades.Optimising energy grids, logistics, traffic and supply chains that defeat today’s supercomputers.Re-engineering AI itself so it stops burning the planet for compute.On Episode 282 of That Great Business Show, Conall Ó Móráin sits down with Jason Lynch, CEO of Equal1 — the Irish quantum computing company that has just raised $60 million, led by Ireland’s sovereign wealth fund, to build enterprise-grade quantum computers using standard silicon chip fabs.No sci-fi. No hype.Just real hardware, real money, real timelines.We talk:• Why quantum makes AI look like the warm-up act• Why 50 qubits beats every computer on Earth combined• Why data centres won’t need to melt rivers to run quantum• Why pharma, banking, energy and defence are already preparing• Why Ireland has a once-only window to lead — and could miss itThis is a five-years-out story hiding in plain sight.Brought to you by De Facto Shaving Oil — made in Mayo, no foam, no nonsense, no landfill-bound cans.They back us. You back them. DeFactoShave.com.Our Gentleman’s (and ladies’) Agreement is simple:We do the work. You hit subscribe. Fair exchange.Listen on Acast, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube.Build the Tribe.
281. E281 That Great Business Show - The “Leaky Bucket” That’s Quietly Killing Profits & How to Fix It, Sharon Kearns
31:43||Season 1, Ep. 281Sales up. Bank balance looks fine. Everyone busy.So why does the business still feel… tight?On Episode 281 of That Great Business Show, Conall Ó Móráin is joined by accountant and business adviser Sharon Kearns, the woman who spots the leaks most business owners never see.This is not theory.This is what actually drains cash, time and energy from otherwise successful businesses.We talk:The “leaky bucket” problem most owners don’t want to faceProfitable businesses quietly losing money on certain products or servicesHidden time leaks, stock traps and invoicing sinsWhy “busy” does not equal profitableThe simple fixes that free up cash fastAnd the “hire in a heartbeat” answer you won’t forgetRecommended by Tom Murphy, founder of De Facto Shaving Oil — and when Tom recommends someone, you listen.Brought to you by De Facto Shaving Oil, handmade in Mayo. No foam. No nonsense. No landfill-bound cans. 👉 defactoshave.com Our Gentleman’s (and ladies’) Agreement is simple: we do the work, you hit subscribe. Fair exchange. Subscribe on Acast, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts Build the tribe. We do the work — you get the value.Irish business podcast, SME cashflow, business profits Ireland, accountant advice Ireland, scaling a business, working capital, Irish entrepreneurs
280. E280 That Greats Business Show - Catherine Madden, MD, Dublin Gazette Newspaper - survival in a declining industry
27:37||Season 1, Ep. 280Episode 280 – Why local newspapers still matter (and why we’d miss them if they were gone)Confession time:I love local newspapers.And I cannot go past the small ads without reading every last one of them.While national newspapers are having a torrid time — and some may not even survive this decade in their current form — one part of print is quietly going against the tide.The local free newspaper.On Episode 280 of That Great Business Show, Conall Ó Móráin is joined by Catherine Madden, Managing Director of the Dublin Gazette Newspaper — Dublin’s number one free weekly, reaching over 300,000 readers every week.We talk about:Why local papers are surviving while nationals struggleWhy small ads still work for real businesses - and that's important for your businessWho is actually keeping an eye on councils, planning and courtsWhy “free” doesn’t mean low qualityAnd why local journalism matters more than everIf you care about your area, your business, or who’s minding the shop locally — this one matters.🎙 Sponsored by De Facto Shaving Oil — all-natural, made in Mayo, no foam, no nonsense, and none of those pressurised cans quietly (and unneccesarily) heading for landfill.👉 Listen now. Share it with someone who still picks up the local paper.