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IT WASN’T OUT of necessity that Fidelma McGuirk set up her fintech business in Mayo, but she admits she needed to get creative when she moved out west.
After a decade in senior roles at Terry Clune’s Taxback group, hiking enthusiast McGuirk and her keen surfer husband decided to move to Westport in 2015 to get more of the outdoors life.
“I’m from Wexford and my husband from Dublin, but it was a question about where we want to live our life and raise our kids,” McGuirk tells Fora.
But for all the positives of living along the Wild Atlantic Way, the region isn’t renowned as a financial services hub, which left McGuirk with a dilemma.
She says Westport is a thriving entrepreneurial town – last year Portwest’s Harry Hughes took home EY’s entrepreneur of the year gong – but since the main industries in the region are hospitality and farming, McGuirk was left scratching her head.
“Looking at my background, I had to figure out something that would be useful in the market. Over the years, when I was international director of Taxback, we set up across 21 countries and something I saw we suffered the pain points of was managing payroll.
“It was near impossible to manage global payroll in a streamlined way that provided consolidated reporting and a good user experience. That led me to build a software solution.”
Her startup, Payslip, does more or less what it says on the tin, providing a cloud-based system that helps businesses manage international payroll.
Despite her work experience being in one of Ireland’s biggest financial firms, McGuirk says the process of launching a startup wasn’t completely alien to her.
During her time at Taxback, which employs more than 1,200 people worldwide, she oversaw the creation of several businesses that were spun out of Clune’s main firm – including Sprintax, which helps foreign students in the US with their tax returns.
When developing the spin-outs, McGuirk says she built up a team of 30 developers to create software services and got a lot experience in bringing a product to market.
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But she admits that starting out completely on her own was very different to having the resources of Taxback behind her.
“You have to be very resourceful in terms of where you find the skilled people you need and how you budget. There is a lot of compliance to keep in mind with fintech as well.
“Setting up a business now, there are parts of it that are more regulated than it would have been 20 years ago. And when you are a startup, there is no shortcut or startup version of cyber security you can buy into, you need the full suite.”
Up until recently, McGuirk and her husband had bootstrapped the company after putting €95,000 of their own money into the business.
It has secured around a dozen clients so far across the agricultural, software and engineering sectors. These companies are operating in 14 countries and pay a yearly licence fee for the system.
In recent weeks, Payslip bagged €1 million in backing from a host of investors – including Dublin venture capital firms Frontline Ventures and Tribal VC, and also Halo Business Angel Network syndicates Bloom Equity and WxNW.
McGuirk says the funding will be put towards recruitment of some senior staff, such as a lead tech engineer and sales manager, and so far the firm hadn’t been held back by its location in Ireland’s west.
“We are growing and, in terms of our client acquisition, there is additional investment for the overseas troops and multinational client support we have to put in.
“You might wonder if you can get what you’re looking for talent wise in the west of Ireland. Well, we have lots of CV applications coming through.
“Our software platform is for multinational enterprises and, by their own definition, if you have a good technology solution they don’t really mind where you are based. That’s not relevant for their deployment, so we don’t see our location as a hamper.”
She adds the funding raised gives the firm two years to focus on expansion.
“We would prefer not to go back for more funding, but if I sign up certain clients we might have to turn around and go for funding again.”
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@JG: he’s appealing to the uk public. They don’t like strikes or union leaders and politicians on picket lines waving copies of socialist worker about. Its why Corbyn lost in a landslide.
I take it back a YouGov poll didn’t. Savanta Comes poll of 2,300 58% of the people questioned said the strikes are justified, with 34% deeming them unjustified.
@Tom Quin: The IPSOS one was equal support at 35% to opposition at 35%. Doesn’t show the British public detesting unions. The only reason the Tories do so well is because the Brits use FPTP elections. It’s well established UK Labour would come out on top with PR voting. So no the British people don’t hate the left.
They sabotaged their party from within with their revolt on Corbyn. It’s no wonder they’re a bit lost for direction these days when they promoted a fence sitter to party leader.
@Rochelle: Corbyn handed the Conservatives their biggest majority in donkeys years. He let Boris off the hook when he was suffocating to death through the pressure of brexit and a minority government. Corbyn showed the worst judgement of any leader in modern history when he agreed to that election. He then bombed out un the election campaign. He will be remembered as one of the worst Labour leaders in history. His decisions, scandals and his unprecedented unnecessary election defeat will ensure that.
@Tim Dawson: Corbyn was utterly railroaded by the media.. Even the BBC photoshopped a Russian style hat onto him on their backgrounds. He was absolutely hounded out of his position. The recent report shows how much the New Labour (Blairite) side of the party and the NEC completely shoehorned him. 100′s of thousands of people joined the Labour Party because Corbyn was the leader and the NEC screwed that membership over.
@FiannaFáilness FineGaelness: the british public have only ever once voted for a socialist government that was after ww2. The media did not give Boris that huge landslide.
@FiannaFáilness FineGaelness: that’s very, very weak. you thinking the uk public are so thick because they did not vote for the guy you wanted them too is the sort of arrogance that switches people off the left.
@Tim Dawson: To be fair he didn’t get the support of the higher up’s in the labour party,the papers were all against him,his own wanted him to fail,he was elected by the people on the ground in the labour party,not saying he was perfect but he never had a chance,look at the head of labour now.
Forgetting that working conditions would still be in the dark ages if it wasn’t for Unions. This isn’t simply a matter of one mp not abiding by party protocols, starmer has been on the fence all along. His fear of the electorate and the right wing press could be considered cautious and prudent but not at the cost of handing everything to the Tories on a plate. Surely it is easy enough for him to highlight that transport issues are created initially by the govt and not by the unions?
@alan: the brit public do not support unions and lefties like Corbyn. Starmer needs to win them over to get the Tories out and going full on Corbyn will give tories another landslide.
If I understand it correctly, he wasn’t sacked for supporting the strikers, but rather because he said it was Labour policy to advocate for a pay rise in line with inflation. Which would a) would make no economic sense – increasing wages in line with inflation will only lead to further inflation, and b) clearly would be a major policy proposal, and as such if someone just says it is the party position when it isn’t, that person should be sacked. Such a proposal is ludicrous, and would just give the Torries the chance to portray Labour as some kind of looney left part that would end up bankrupting Britain, hurting small business owners, etc. etc. Right now, Labour just need to sit back and quiet while the Torries destroy themselves.
Always the same with Labour, when the Tories are on the ropes they proceed to shoot themselves in both feet. Fairly much unelectable as they’re perceived as differing factions all adopting opposing views. Should just split into three different parties and be done with it.
Shouldn’t Labour ya know, be on the side of workers. I’m guessing that day has long since past since Tony Blair and ‘new Labour’. Moderate Tories in disguise
Unable to govern themselves anymore over there…Maybe we should tie in with India and jointly go in to save(colonise) them and restore good governance … ;)
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