Ciaran Clissmann is the founder of Pintail Ltd. Pintail is a consultancy specialising in securing EU research funding for consortia of universities of companies, primarily from the 80-billion-euro Horizon 2020 programme. We work with academic and industrial researchers to build compelling applications for multi-year R&D projects, in domains such as health, ICT and security. A typical project takes 3 years and secures 6 million euro in funding. We co-write the applications and then help to manage the projects right through to completion. 

LEO DLR has repeatedly supported the company as we recruited new staff to resource our growing business. LEO business expansion grant aid has made  it easier for us to recruit excellent staff, and thus to maintain our hight standards and build an excellent international reputation. LEO have also supported our international marketing activities, which have helped us to grow an international client base, with projects in the UK, Germany, Denmark, as well as across Ireland.

Listen to your customers, and help them to meet the needs of their own target market.

Be the best at what you do. Don’t be afraid to charge what you believe you’re worth. Control costs, especially recurrent overheads that you can’t stop paying.

By organic growth. Originally a one-man company with low overheads, I took on staff and commitments only when I had earned the money to pay for them.

Our growth to date has been largely word-of-mouth and repeat business; we don’t use social media or the web, much, for marketing or promotion. Our favourite digital tools, though, are dropbox, google drive, gmail, majordomo mailing lists, and the old reliable Microsoft Office.

Seriously consider working from home, and having your staff do the same. As more and more work arrives and leaves online, the value of commuting (and renting an office) is  far from clear.