Business Contact Details
| Name: | Fergal O’Byrne |
| Title: | CEO |
| Business Name: | Sonru |
| Website: | Sonru.com |
| Business BIO: |
Sonru’s mission is to become the preferred online video tool for all 1st round interviews. Sonru is a Software as a Service (“SaaS”) offering and represents a compelling investment proposition. It is a revenue-generating enterprise that is configured for growth, scalable, has strong international potential, and the potential to make a significant return for early stage investors. Sonru will be an attractive business for a range of potential acquirers; including recruitment companies, media enterprises, technology companies, Telcos and eLearning enterprises. |
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
| Q: | What are you doing now? |
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Preparing for the week ahead; I have some funding presentations to make in Dublin and I have some updates to my presentation to prepare. |
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| Q: | What’s your typical work day? |
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Surprisingly, I am not going to answer this saying I hit the office at 7a.m. I actually drop my kids to crèche and do not usually get to my office until 9am. However, I regularly stay until well after 6pm and of course my phone and laptop is never far away. |
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| Q: | What’s your favourite aspect of work? |
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Working in a small team of dedicated professionals with a huge level of enthusiasm for the journey we are on. |
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| Q: | What is your background? |
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I left school an went into Eircom for 14 years, 4 of those on a scholarship to do a degree in Electronic Engineering. I then left to start up my own Online Marketing company and have been in start-up land pretty much ever since. |
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| Q: | What’s the best thing that happened in the last year? |
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Taking on the role in Sonru last October was definitely a highlight. It is an excellent start-up predicated on a brilliant yet simple idea. |
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| Q: | What is your best source of new business? |
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We use online networks like LinkedIn to drum up sales leads. We also have a fantastic reseller partnership with IrishJobs.ie and Jobs.ie which is working well. |
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| Q: | How do you communicate with your customers? |
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We use a variety of methods; updates to our blog, regular email marketing messages and good old fashioned face to face meetings. |
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| Q: | What does customer service mean to you? |
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We have an ethos in our company; Excellence in Everything. It might sound cheesy but it is a mantra that we bring into every facet of our business. And customer service is at the top. Excellence in Everything, especially customer service, means that we can literally live up to our name. Sonru's name is dervived from the Irish phrase “Bí le sonrú” which means to “stand out”. |
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| Q: | What does the internet mean for your business? |
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Our business only exists because of the internet! All our video interviews are stored “in the cloud” and our entire platform is web based. |
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| Q: | Do you manage your work/life balance? |
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I am very passionate about this business and I think about it all the time – that is the reality of being involved in a start-up. You cannot sit back and relax; I can do plenty of that when we sell the company and I have retired to a small Italian village. |
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| Q: | Any low brow vices? Jedward? Coronation Street? McDonalds? |
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Find myself getting obsessed with DVD box sets; current one is The Wire which is compulsive viewing. I find myself telling my wife I am going to the gym but the real reason is to watch a few episodes of this brilliant series. |
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| Q: | What does innovation mean to you? |
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Simplicity. All of the most innovative ideas I have come across have this characteristic at their core. When I met Edward Hendrick, the company founder, he was adamant that his idea was just that; simple. |
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| Q: | How do you handle negative feedback from customers? |
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Full on. We try to meet with them and see what the issues were. If the issues are on our side, we fix it, show our customers that we have fixed it and commit to never letting it break again! Our product has evolved thanks to both negative and positive feedback from our customers. They effectively delineate our product roadmap. |
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| Q: | Is business networking, either online and / or offline, of benefit to you? |
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Absolutely, we use the full gamut of online networking tools to promote our business and its objectives. |
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| Q: | Best time management tip? |
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Don’t read books about time management tips! |
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| Q: | Best business accessory? |
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My wife! She’s works in our company so she knows when I say I’m working late ... |
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| Q: | Is there anything that defeats you? |
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People not willing to change under any circumstances. Our product is changing the way businesses conduct interviews. The reception we have received has been tremendous. Occasionally we get someone who will not even listen to your ideas – it is not defeating for me; I believe it is a defeat for them. |
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| Q: | What is your view of business for the next year? |
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We are very upbeat in Sonru. We have had significant take-up from our clients and the pipeline is very robust. I think products like ours that can show cost savings will flourish. |
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| Q: | What’s next? |
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Catapulting Sonru to the global player it has the potential to be. |
