Róisín Callaghan: Lessons From Across The Pond
To start off the season we meet up with Róisín Callaghan, Co-founder and CEO at Cogs & Marvel, a brand experience and creative event agency.
Having moved her business to San Francisco in 2016, she’s learnt a lot over the past 3 years about the dos and don'ts involved with moving a business across the pond.
From finding her first contracts and building up her companies reputation, to the struggles she faced and expectations she had to overcome, she shares with us all she’s learnt...
“It’s hard work in setting it up and getting established, but there are networks and organisations to help you with that, so use them. Americans are really good at networking and they really want to help you.”
Time Stamps:
02:19 - Working in events and event management.
04:06 - When Cogs and Marvel started.
05:11 - Working with Google and gaining their first contracts.
08:47 - What makes their events special and stand out from others.
10:44 - What inspired Roisin to move her business to San Francisco.
15:12 - Good reasons and bad reasons for wanting to expand your business to the US.
16:06 - The types of businesses that might struggle more in the US compared to the UK.
17:40 - The logistics involved with moving to America, and the qualities that helped Roisin be successful.
22:09 - The differences involved with setting up the company in America compared to Ireland.
23:42 - Advice for people who are just starting with their move to America.
25:50 - The existing communities that are available to help entrepreneurs with moving their businesses abroad.
30:53 - The different challenges that come up when running an event in America compared to Europe.
38:02 - The process of proving themselves when first arriving in America.
42:11 - The expectations that come with being an Irish company in America.
44:00 - Advice for those thinking of moving their business to San Francisco.
Resources:
www.mtbonnell.com
www.cogsandmarvel.com
www.enterprise-ireland.com
Connect with Róisín Callaghan: LinkedIn
Email us at - Info@mtbonnell.com
Twitter - @mtbonnell
Connect with Sebastian Sauerborn: LinkedIn
Connect with Nastaran Tavakoli-Far: LinkedIn
Episode Transcript
Episode 19: Róisín Callaghan – Lessons From Across The Pond
Roisin: I am Roisin Callaghan from Cogs & Marvel, I’m the CEO of the US entity and Cogs & Marvel is a creative events and brand activation company. So we do events for large companies and actually, any company and we do brand activations for any type of brand.
Nas: That’s Roisin Callaghan of the brand experience and creative events company Cox and Marvel.
Hi, this is the second season of Move Your Business to the United States from Mount Bonnell Advisors who help you expand your business into the US.
I’m Nas or Nastaran Tavakoli-Far and this season we’re going to speaking to businesses who made the move to the US. We’re going to see what’s worked, what hasn’t and how their journey is gone.
So we’ll be having episodes every two weeks, Mount Bonnell CEO, Sebastian Sauerborn will also be answering your questions, so send them over to info@mtbonnell.com
Well, the purpose of a party is to have fan together. And the successful party needs planning and skill. Whether it’s a special carnival, designed for game entertainment, or a game party in a home, a birthday party, a holiday party, they all take planning. And they should all be fun.
Nas: Now, if you are company looking to make it big, you’re going to need help with building your brand and with putting on spectacular events, whether to bond your team or for your clients. People often think they can do their own events, surely all they need is a room and some food, but then they stumble, I’ve tried it myself and I don’t advise it. That’s where today’s guest comes in. Roisin Callaghan is of Cox and Marvel. Now they are brand and events company and they started in 2006 in Dublin. They’ve put on events for a range of companies including Google and LinkedIn and now also have an office in San Francisco. We’ve caught up with her about the move.
Roisin: I guess the great thing about working in events and event management is that every day is different. No event is the same, nobody wants the same thing and everybody wants something that was better that other people had. So, people go to events all the time. It has to be standout, different, exciting, I guess a lot of our day to day is logistics, the planning and the effort that goes in to making an event “wow”.
Again, anyone that’s been to an event, it’s probably a day long, so if you think, for one day event we could spend months planning that. And a lot of that is talking to suppliers, dealing with clients, having brainstorms in the office, you know, trying to come up with new funky, fun, interesting different things to do that’s going to engage the people that are at our events.
Sebastian: I can completely see where you’re coming from, we have many clients, we’re entrepreneurs who actually dread doing events, because it’s so much work, it’s a nightmare logistically. It takes so much time, so I can totally see how putting together a good event, it’s a huge task and a company like yours is so important.
Roisin: Absolutely, I mean, it’s like everything, you know, if you’re building a house, it’s much easier to get a builder and to do it, you know, than start the DYI. It’s just time consuming for a company if they’re starting off and they are trying to, you know, develop their product or promote their business. They don’t need to waste time working on an event, and we say that all the time. Just let us help you get to that point where you have a wow event rather than you’re wasting time doing yourself.
Nas: And when did you start Cogs & Marvel?
Roisin: So myself and my business partner Jane set up the company in 2006 and we have gone from strength to strength. It was the two of us for a very long time, probably far longer than it should’ve been, we eventually started hiring people when we’ve realized that, A, we couldn’t do it ourselves and B, other people were probably integral to helping us and also your team, people you hire do better than you, and help and aid to make your company become better. So we kept hiring and growing the team and it was 2016, so ten years later we decided to explore moving into the US.
Nas: And I want to ask you a little bit about that, why did you do this move, especially because I’m thinking the sort of work you do is so people centered -?
Roisin: Yeah.
Nas: So, I guess a lot of it has to do with knowing the right people and keeping up those connections, those relationships and stuff -?
Roisin: Yes. Well, I think, so when we set up in 2006, we, actually kind of landed on our feet with our first gig, our first big event was for Google, here in Dublin. We did their sales conference, we pitched for it, we were terrified, and Jane and myself, just to give you a little background actually, Jane and myself had worked together, and kind of thought, “we could do this better”, you know, “we could do this better” cause we’re young we were working for clients who kind of wanted people to be able to understand the new tech that was coming in and we were kind of with it.
And we were excited and we were clearly younger and more enthusiastic and we thought that we can do better than where we are at the moment and make this shine. So we kind of said, let’s just set up in a run, so we were very brave and set up and took a while, and then through our previous contacts we got the opportunity to pitch for an event for Google, and you know we were absolutely terrified going in, and we knew the people we were pitching to, but it just felt different, it felt like we had a lot to lose this time, this was about us, this was our company, we really wanted to make this work.
So we gave it socks and blew them out of the water and the event that we were pitching was in Seville, in Spain, and we had the most amazing pitch, presentation and it was absolutely fantastic and we won it. And we won it and we get off the phone and we looked at each other and we went “Jesus now we have to make it work” [smiling] so off we went to Spain and we didn’t doubt ourselves you know, we know we couldn’t do it, it just, suddenly it was real.
So we went off to Spain and you know, pulled it out of the bag and it was a spectacular event. So ever since then, we were really lucky in that we worked with Google on their big events and, in fact as we’ve grown so have they and so the numbers that we’ve been dealing with for this, you know, European Sales Conference has gone from 1500 people to 5500 people.
Sebastian: Oh, incredible.
Roisin: Yeah.
Sebastian: It’s a very big event, yeah-
Roisin: Yeah, so, you know we’ve kind of known for those big events, you know we can handle that mass amounts of numbers. And, the events that we did, those events actually, were all over Europe. So, we had to do everything, chargers, regular flights, hotels, you know, staffing-
Nas: So organizing this for every one attendee -?
Roisin: Everything, everyone that was coming, was coming from all over Europe and we had to get them there. The past few events have been in Dublin because particularly with Google their headquarters and the European sales headquarter is here, so there’s less people involved in the travel but we’re still having to cater for 3000 people coming into Ireland for it. And, so we kind of landed on our feet with our first Google gig, and you know, what we do, we do really well, and-
Sebastian: Can you give us some details on that Roisin, so when you say the event is really special I mean certainly it’s just not hiring a big conference center, and then people giving talks, what makes it special, what’s the USP, why did Google say “wow this is incredible we need to do this”?
Roisin: Well I think we’re exceptional at logistics, so you know they knew they were going to get top class logistics and everyone was going to get there and it was going to be very smooth. But I think what made that event and what made it for us was, nothing can be ordinary, nothing can be normal, so we’ve had to find event that was different and special, and it was just outside Seville, which meant that we’ve had them captured.
Of course, I can’t take the praise for this, but the weather was amazing [smiling] so that definitely helped and I think everyone was just in a really good form and also this is an opportunity for them to get together and to be together, you know usually they’re on the phone or their calls, might work with their teams internationally but they don’t get to see each other very often.
So you know we’ve been very cognizant at the fact that although it’s work, you have to have a better relaxation as well. We’d have key speakers, both internally and externally, and as long as they’re engaging, you know, it’s win-win for everybody. We had acts and entertainment that, you know, is kind of a bit left of center but it kind of went along with it.
So in Seville, we’ve had the Gypsy Kings so that was kind of fun [smiling] and so we’re very aware of the work that has to be done and yet the social side of it. We did a fantastic Tapas Crawl around the city, we literally took over the center field and brought them around on a tapas crawl and we had little maps and it’s the details and the attention to detail that we are particularly keen on.
Sebastian: Sounds amazing.
Roisin: Yeah, it was good fun, yeah.
Nas: So tell us a bit about the move to the US -?
Roisin: So, from the fact that we’ve been very lucky in working with Google, we’ve actually been, you know, it took us awhile to realize that we really didn’t do much sales and often a lot what happened to us was word of mouth, and as in any big company, people move on and move into different company. So we ended up getting introductions to other big FDI companies that were based in Ireland.
Sebastian: FDI means what -?
Roisin: Foreign Direct Investment so a lot of the kind of big US companies that were investing in Ireland and setting up in Ireland, Facebook, Dropbox, LinkedIn, Airbnb, we kind of got these fantastic soft introductions, because the people we had worked with in previous companies had moved there.
Sebastian: And I guess also like, Dublin is quite small isn’t it?
Roisin: Exactly, you know, everybody knows everybody or is related to anybody [smiling] but I just think we are exceptional we do so, word of mouth was very strong. So, we’ve had a lot of contacts and I think we still do have a lot of these organizations, and we kind of felt it was a little bit of Chinese whispers so if there was a conference or something going on, there might be internally a theme that had to be developed as part of the conference or the purpose of the meeting of the conference, the get together, whatever, there was a point to it.
But we often felt that it was coming from here, way up at the highest level and filtering down to the different departments.
And by the time we got that information it was the Chinese whispers, distilled down and we were like “could you just explain what the point of that is”, and of course the people would really may not know, because they’ve also might heard it from up high, so we just thought it might be nice to get closer to the center of that information, where it was coming from.
And we thought what better way to do that than to be at the heart of where is coming from, in Palo Alto or in San Francisco. So, it was kind of a bit of a whim and a bit of a crazy thought, and we said let’s see what it’s like in San Francisco, you know, where all these big companies are, you know, a lot of the people that we meet by the time the conference is actually happening, dress rehearsal, you know let’s see if we can get closer to them.
So we went, I went over to San Francisco and Jane and I picked straws and I got the- I’m not sure if I got the short one [smiling] or the long one, actually, and I went off on a reckie in June to San Francisco, to see what it was like and to meet people and contacts that we’ve had both client wise and also just to check out lawyers and accountants and that sort of thing and how easy it was.
And I think, in hindsight, you know, you’ve being Irish, you have a lot of Irish contacts and a lot of the people that I’ve met were like, oh it would be fine, just do it, it’s so easy just do it [smiling] yeah no problem.
Nas: People here were saying that?
Roisin: No people in America, the Irish contacts that we had over there. So I came back from there and wrote a report and spoke to the team and Jane and our chairman and it was kind of like, okay, let’s do it. So by September I was there.
Nas: September which?
Roisin: That year, in 2006.
Nas: Hi, you’re listening to Move Your Business to the United States with Mount Bonnell Advisors. I’m Nas, I’m here with the CEO of Mount Bonnell, Sebastian Sauerborn, and we are taking questions all season, so send those to info@mtbonnell.com that’s in the show notes. So we had an email from Phil, from Bristol, now he owns a small greetings cards company and he’s been telling us that he’s been having chats with some of his small to medium size business owner friends and asked the following, he wants to know, “Hi, what are some good reasons and some bad reasons for wanting to expand your business to the US?”
Sebastian: I think a good reason is definitely that your business is successful already, let’s say in the UK and you’re having enquiries from the US, so that shows them some interest and from the US market, I think these are very good reasons to move to the US, so you have a successful business that is doing well, your products are desirable, are wanted by the customer, I don’t think there’s a reason then, why US customer won’t be interested in those products. If you have a business that is not working in the UK, I doubt that it would work in the US, so I think that’s always a good benchmark, do you have a successful business here, are you getting enquiries from the US to sell your products there and if yes, then why not consider send it to the US.
Nas: Sebastian, I’m just wondering are there certain industries or types of business which might struggle more in the US compare to here in the UK -?
Sebastian: I think service businesses that require onsite services are more difficult to expand to the US because you need to hire staff and everything, while a business like field business for example who is manufacturing cards can send those cards to a storage facility in the US easily to start with services, that’s not so easy. So, I think if you have an online chopping commerce business, E-commerce and same through Amazon, it’s very easy to do that, other business will take more time to prepare.
Nas: Thanks Sebastian, and thank you Phil for sending us the question, send us more questions, it’s info@mtbonnell.com we’ve put that in the show notes, and now, back to the episode.
Well the party is off to a good start, guests are on time, everyone is out to have fun and to have others fun and when all the guests have arrived and have been introduced, the games begin, well planned, well chosen games. Whenever any of the guests begin to lose interest in the game, the host should start a new game. So fun together can continue.
Nas: What’s really interesting that what you guys do, because it’s so people centered, so I’m thinking culture plays a lot of role. It’s this different from, say you create a product and of course you got to deal with people but, everything you guys do is interacting with people.
Roisin: Yeah.
Nas: So what were the logistics of that move like, what was it like, in a completely different culture, trying to do what you do?
Roisin: Yeah, I think you know, we did a bit of research and background checking but actually I think we were quite blind going over like what we do is one hundred percent service industry, and actually once we got there we’ve realized we were phenomenal at service in comparison to locally.
And we really cared about what we do, care about what we do, and our staff are really well trained and you know we have very high standards and we passed that down, and I feel that even you know we’ve always been interested in America, it’s very different service in the restaurants there than here, and it’s actually kind of similar in a lot of the service industries.
And so I think we go above and beyond and that’s something that our clients always say if there is a problem we will not let it go until it’s fixed and we just keep smiling, we just get through it, you know, the proverbial, lots going on under the water but-
Nas: But all comes on the surface-
Roisin: All come on the surface and I think going that extra mile and being charming and nice about it, actually has stood us all the time. So I think we noticed it very quickly and we wondered if our clients would notice it, you know, that really what we did stood out even more once we got to San Francisco. And they did, they’ve noticed that our service levels were much higher than they’ve had before and that we were really very good at what we do.
Nas: And can you describe an early event that you did once you set up in the US?
Roisin: [smiling] We really hit the ground running. Myself and two of the team from here went out in September and I suppose one of the key learning that I would have certainly from the type of business that we do was that I never looked at the setting up of the company and carrying on with what we do as being two separate things and we really should have spent more time setting up the company because it was far more time consuming, we have thought and every time it just felt constantly like, one step forward two steps back, you know, you get somewhere and then you have to contact somebody else or do something else.
So we had to run a lot around what we were doing through the Irish company because we were too slow go bank accounts and it just took a lot more time to set up the company that we have expected.
Nas: And you’ve got an eight hour time difference, so I assume everything is going to roll over several days or something -?
Roisin: Yeah, I mean, I think there’s far more efficiency in European bureaucracy, than there is in American bureaucracy, I mean, everything is time consuming there.
Sebastian: That’s also I think a bit of an Irish thing, I think, compare to the UK I think that in Ireland things go much smoothly, I mean, banks here are much more interested in getting the ball rolling.
Roisin: Yeah.
Roisin: Getting you set up, I mean even setting up bank accounts for example in the UK compare to Ireland is far more complicated. So I think Ireland, and this is interesting that you’ve said that, I think in terms of B2B Ireland has a very good service culture, history and tradition, I mean, because I think it comes a little bit from that situation that Ireland is depending on international businesses to invest in, so they want to make it as smoothly as possible. I think a good example is always the preclearance in Dublin airport, yeah? To American that’s incredible.
Roisin: Fantastic service, yeah.
Sebastian: You know, I mean, you arrive after ten hours and you just walk out of the building, you don’t have to go for three hours at immigration.
Roisin: Yeah.
Sebastian: Everyone that has done that says, wow, it’s incredible.
Roisin: Yeah, exactly.
Sebastian: So I can totally agree I mean this is, I think and everything you’ve said about the services you provide and also the services that you’ve experienced in the States, setting everything up is much more difficult, that makes a lot of sense.
Roisin: Yeah, and I think in, like when we’ve set up the company here, in Ireland, we went into the bank and they were delighted for us, you know, they were fully behind us, you know, they didn’t throw money and overdrafts and loans at us but, you know, they were, “this is a great idea, how can we help you, what can we do”, whereas in America you just a number, you know, and you’re kind of speaking to people who are following the rule book.
You know, they’ve been given what to say and they don’t have the autonomy to say, do you know what, I’m going to break from the norm here and I’m going to help you out, cause I can see clearly you have funds in Ireland, you know, you’re well established et cetera.
It’s like, well no, you’re just starting off and you don’t have any accounts from previous years, because it’s your first time in America, and we’re going to have to stop it there. You know, and there’s no using your common sense and I find that was often the way we met or often what we came up against when setting things up.
And, that kind of follow through then to why we did so well, because it’s common sense, 99 percent of the time. You know, and I think we took a long time to set things up because of that and I felt that was what was frustrating, we could’ve had it done in no time because we were efficient. But it was constantly up against the brick walls.
Nas: So, this is an interesting point because, if you’d have to give your old self some advice, what would you say, given this experience?
Roisin: [smiling] I would set things up or certainly have a lot more in place, probably before going over, you can actually do a lot and situe here in Europe, in terms of setting things up.
Nas: And what are some examples of that?
Roisin: So, start speaking to the banks, you know, speak to the firms that you are going to need, whether that’s immigration, lawyers, accountancy firms, you know, who are going to help you with your tax returns, that sort of thing, interview them, you know actually have interviews with them and do it on a call and narrow down and then go and speak to them in person.
And do more, sort of research with companies that have walked in your shoes beforehand, so speak to companies that have been there and done that, and get recommendations and why. And if somebody recommends somebody that might be perfect for them, what are the similarities that you have with that company, that would make you want to use that service or that provider?
So I took a lot of recommendations at face value and once we kind of dug of it deeper, it suited the other companies more because of the things that they were doing and the sector that they were in, more than it suited us. But, because we had hit the ground running we were kind of committed, so we kind of had to work through things and out the other rent rather than sort of having started off properly with what we needed for our sector. And it was more recommendations from other people and then realizing maybe it wasn’t the right fit and we were already in it, if you know what I mean.
Nas: So, this is interesting because was there sort of community for Irish businesses moving to the US or European businesses moving to the US that you could chat to, could be involved in, when you were kind of making this move then?
Roisin: Well we were really lucky in Ireland with the input that we’ve got from Enterprise Ireland, and so they are based all around the world. So anyone who is thinking of opening a business, certainly an Irish company opening a business outside of Ireland, talk to Enterprise Ireland, they have fantastic people on the ground who have been there for a while and just know what you’re looking for and what you need.
So we had an amazing contact there, Paul, and he literally gave me pages of information and things like lawyers, you know, he said to me, here’s a load of law firms and these are the ones that I would recommend but you are much smaller company, you’re doing a very different thing, you’re female owned this is another law firm that’s also a female owned and I think they would suit you really well.
So he actually was able to see what we would need rather than a big legal giant of a company. And they were a match made in heaven. I’ve met a lot of them and he was right on the money after having met them. There was, you know, they gave us advice on accountancy firms and real estate agents, you know, all sorts of things.
And then also IT providers, everything literally, and he was also able to say you know companies x, y, z have use them, talk to them and get your own feedback on them and to any Irish company that’s an invaluable service, it’s fantastic. And they’ve been great, ever since, if there’s ministers coming over there’s talks or whatever, you’re included in things that are going on within the Irish diaspora over there.
Nas: And what about peers, cause there are so many day to day things that were certainly baffling or stressful, were they sort of- did you have peers where you can kind of give each other advice, maybe just vent about, you know, all the slowness that you were facing and stuff -?
Roisin: Yeah, absolutely, I think, I didn’t have a huge amount of peers from the point of view of business connections going over there initially, but we did decide to open an office in a WeWork space so that we would have lots of other companies and we could, you know, say to them, even things like, where’s the nearest dentist, you know, does anyone have any recommendations, and funny we actually found it not as accessible and we didn’t find them as sort of open and to sharing as we had hoped.
And I think actually it’s almost a nature of those WeWork spaces, people come in, put their head down and leave, and there’s a certain type of person that’s going to hang out, play futsal in the common area you know [smiling]
Nas: So he isn’t doing a lot of work.
Roisin: Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, so we kind of would get to know the people around us but it took a bit longer than we thought to kind of break through and actually we realized again, we kind of had gone to a couple of WeWork spaces but you know, there’s a lot of them in San Francisco, we couldn’t look at them all, and we ended up in a very corporate one, and we eventually found once we had grown and we needed to move, we found a much funkier one, you know, far more creative and fun like us.
And that was far more cohesive to chatting and you know finding out things. But that was a year down the line and we’d taken a lot of boxes at that stage. So, again, another tip would be, the work sharing thing is fabulous, like it’s fantastic, it’s really good idea, it’s month to month, it’s not a big investment, they always have spaces, you can leave literally at the end of the month and you can pick and choose the size you want, where you want to be and you can really get to know the space and kind of think, this suits the character of our company, it’s impressive, bringing people in here would be great. And it’s so common, like it’s a fantastic service. And that was one of the best things we did, the office sharing before we took the plunge and got our own office.
The party is going well again, and we noticed some of the skills of the guests that helped keep the party fun for all, let’s look for others.
Nas: Can you describe what it’s like put an event out there compared to here in Europe? What are the differences or the different challenges you’ve faced?
Roisin: So the first challenge that we’ve faced in terms of getting to there, was staff. And we kind of felt it was going to be easy to find staff, we’ve had initially thought we would move to Palo Alto to be near a lot of companies that we’ve dealt with were, but because of the kind of industry we are and, you know it’s that creative young person what we’re looking for, they’re not going to be in Palo Alto.
So, our first major decision where we had to have a complete turnaround was that we’ve decided to base ourselves in San Francisco instead of down in the Peninsula. So, we had to figure out how to hire staff. We met with a couple of recruitment agencies, but they just didn’t get the kind of person we were looking for, it was all very tech, like just constantly tech. So, we’ve had to advertise in couple of Irish networking sort of things and they were great, we’ve got a lot of Irish people, however after they were on J1 but we felt that the people that we hired were nowhere near the standard than the people that we would get here.
So there was a lot of training and a lot of sort of making them realize how we do things and going that extra mile and literally using your common sense, you know, that it’s not all about rules. You know, use your head.
So we’ve had to hire staff in order to put on the events and we had the same things with suppliers, you know, we wanted to do things a little bit different, nothing to do with health and safety or we weren’t asking them to light things on fire [smiling] it was just, you know, this is how you normally do it, can we do it a bit differently? And it was always be, you know, a conversation about how they haven’t done it before and it was like that’s no point. Fantastic, that’s what we want-
Nas: But, that’s interesting hearing that because, I think in Europe we think like, oh if you have big ideas you want break the rules, you want to do something disruptive we’ve always looked to California. So it’s interesting you’re having a very different experience.
Roisin: Yeah, I think the service industry over there is just a bit slow, I think if you can get beyond, sort of, the foot soldiers, you’ll get somewhere, but it has to come from the top down. So, if you’re trying to go from the bottom up, it’s constantly resistance. So if you can kind of, and so that’s what we’ve realized eventually as well, you know, we’ve been trying to get something done and organized and eventually we’ve have to kind of say, look, you know, for the next one let’s do sight visits and make these like get these relationships really well established with the owners or the founders or the managing directors because they will understand who we are and what we are trying to achieve and can pass that message down.
So we’ve had to spend a lot of time building relationships with suppliers that we would never have to, we would never really have done here. Our relationships with suppliers here have been fantastically developed over time because we worked for them for so long, and they get us, they got us straight away here.
So that again was a little bit frustrating in terms of time wasting, and of course, unfortunately you kind of get so far with the supplier, and if you’re getting that resistance and you needed something quickly you just move on. And there are, for every company, every service that you’re looking for there is twenty other companies doing it. So, we really had to spend a lot of time interviewing our suppliers or even though they might have been highly recommended or the clients have used them before, you know, if there wasn’t a relationship there, it was quite difficult.
So the suppliers, the staff, that all took time to develop, and so we’ve actually ended up, I had gone initially with two other girls from here, so three of us went over, and we spent a lot of time running things ourselves, because we had to get it done. And, a lot of the events that we did initially were quite small.
You know we had to prove ourselves and the clients that we had here have recommended us but obviously it’s- you know they want to see how we get on, and so we did a lot of small things before we did any big events and the first big event that we did, so we went over in September, and the first big event that we did was in March, where we were working on a big massive Google event called Next and it was like 10 000 people.
And so we literally hit the ground like sprinting [smiling] and we worked on that with many, which I thought it was fantastic, loads of different production companies. So it wasn’t just us, we were partnering with other companies and that was fantastic, not something that’s done as much here.
Because you’re kind of well-established you know, we tend to run the show but we were partnering with other companies so we’ve got a bit of insight into how they do things, what their pros and cons were, and it was actually fascinating and we could see things that we needed to improve on, things that we did better on, you know and the kind of staff that they got, where they got their staff, you know, all those interesting things from our point of view. So that collaboration was fantastic for us.
Sebastian: Isn’t interesting, the things that you’ve said like, at least, up to probably maybe ten or fifteen years ago we thought of America as the place which is the most advanced in many ways even like in service culture, we thought that America was the place to look at, such a great service culture, they pack your bags in the supermarket, you know [smiling] but then, you come here and met that experience and experience I completely share, that, out of the box thinking I think is such a big benefit and asset that many European companies have there.
And I really think they need to apply that strength there where this is really where they can impress, right? How did the clients reacted, I mean I know you had these great references from Google and the other American subsidiaries in Ireland but I’m sure it was still difficult to get, and as you just said to do big events, I’m sure many clients have doubts at the beginning, these Irish people you know, I’m not sure, you know, how did that work?
Roisin: Well, I think our work and our reputation spoke for us, and so, you know, if we went in to pitch and you know they could see what kind of events we have done and so that spoke volumes and I think we were passionate about what we do, you know, we would be going to meet them and they could sense that that we love what we do and we’re really good at it and you know we’re going to make your event amazing.
And we got lots of other clients obviously we didn’t just work on the word of mouth once we got there. And actually when we got there I found people were fantastic and if you wanted to meet them to talk about something, they would do it, no problem. So you could get in front of them and have a coffee no problem whatsoever, you know, if it was a potential client you had to know what you wanted to ask them and have an impact and don’t mess it up, you have one opportunity.
If it was anybody just to get a bit of advice, they are happy, happy, happy to talk to you. And they are delighted to help you succeed but they are not going to recommend you, they are not going to put you forward until they know that they can rely on you. And so we really had to prove ourselves to make them realize that if they were to talk about us, we wouldn’t let them down. And we have one amazing American client now in different tech company and she talk about us to everybody, because we did a big event for her and we made her look amazing.
And you know she was under pressure, she needed a team, I met her, we had a great relationship, and we made her look so good, she has recommended us to loads of people. But I have known her for a year, a year and a half maybe before we did anything. And, she did lots of things and she knew people that needed help but she didn’t recommend us until she knew she could rely on us.
So I think once they have faith in you they would back you one hundred percent, but you have to prove yourself. And I think just a little things that we would’ve done, you know we would constantly be in touch with them and be in contact with them but not annoy them, you know, and I found, you know, often, there was constantly emails coming through or newsletters or gifts from clients and I, just talking to people it just annoyed them a little bit so, we kind of just did things that were relationship building, let’s go for drink or you know, because we’ve had that Irish reputation that obviously presumed that it always going to be great fun [smiling]
Sebastian: St. Patrick’s Day spirit [smiling]
Roisin: [smiling] Yeah, yeah, and we’ve actually had St. Patrick’s Day party in the WeWork space, you know, just to kind of, let everyone who we were and what we did, and there was always something on in the communal area but everybody said that it was the busiest and the most fun that they’ve ever experienced.
You know we had some Irish dancing and we had a cake and made Irish coffees, and of course, you know, it was a lot of it, it was the banter and the chat and the genuine warmth that Irish people have, that’s what they loved, you know, well they’ve said that, I reckon that it was probably an alcohol as well [smiling]
Nas: But it was fun St. Patrick’s Day is such a big deal there cause I’ve been in the US during St. Patrick’s Day and it’s like what is going on [smiling] it’s like a huge thing.
Roisin: Yeah, it wasn’t as exciting in San Francisco as I’d hoped, it was a bit flat you know still lots of small little floats and things or advertising whatever Irish thing they had or did, as opposed to the rasmatus of Chicago or New York. And but still, like, they closed the streets and they marched on through and you know little old Irish floats taking over San Francisco is still relevant and important isn’t it, and so, yeah, you can’t escape St. Patrick’s Day [smiling]
Nas: So this point is interesting because Ireland and the US have quite interesting relationship, so I wanted to know a little bit about that, you guys are going over as an Irish company. Were there sort of expectations they had of you guys good or bad, to do that sort of this legacy and this history?
Roisin: I think there’s so many Irish people in Silicon Valley now. And so many really high level Irish people over there, and that you know our reputation definitely proceeds us in terms of the fun and the St. Patrick’s Day, but also that high end work level is there as well. And a lot of the very senior people that we’ve met have amazing reputations, you know, of being really fantastic workers, hard workers but very fair and nice as well.
Nas: Senior Irish people there.
Roisin: Yes, senior Irish people within lots of different organizations, and you know, lots of Irish people that have founded companies and very often, you know, as is, sort of common with Irish people as well, very humble, you know, despite the fact that there are these bohemes at business, they’re still very normal humble people.
So I think that a lot of the people that we would interacted with would’ve had a lot of contact with Irish people prior to us. So I feel that probably would’ve known that the same work ethos was within us as they would’ve been common with from working with Irish people previously.
Nas: You’ve kind of already answered this but I want to ask it again, if you had to give advice to a company who think of moving to the US, especially to San Francisco, what would be the main advice, main Dos and Don’ts?
Roisin: The main points for me would be to make sure that San Francisco is definitely where you want to be. And to do research on what it is that you’re selling and why and who you’re going to sell to, definitely do some competitor checking and figure out what they’re good at and what they’re not good at, and I also think don’t doubt yourself, you know, if you’ve got it here, there’s no reason why you can’t have it there. And it’s not some alien place, you know, it’s just as- you could be just as successful there as you have been here. Don’t treat it as this really far out weird place that you have to kind of-
Nas: Crack-
Roisin: Drill through and crack, it’s not like that. There is hard work in setting it up and getting established and you know, knocking on doors, but there are networks and there are organizations to help you with that, so use them. And the Americans in general, and certainly in San Francisco are really good at networking, like they love it, they are happy to do it, and you know, they really want to help you.
So they are happy to give you advice, so don’t feel bad about asking, just pick up the brains of everyone that you can. And spend a bit of time in figuring out what services you are going to need as a business to help you to succeed and do good research on those. But one thing I have to say is, the energy in San Francisco is unbelievable, and you know, you just sense it, that willingness to succeed is in the air.
And I know it sounds really corny and strange but it’s really true, everyone you meet is a founder or is setting up a business, or wants to be the next big thing. And the determination of the people, it’s palpable, like, you can sense it, you know, and people just work really hard and they play hard you know, a lot of stuff happens on the way to the gym, in the gym and a lot of stuff happens early, early in the morning and early in the evening, like, work is from 6 to 6 and then it’s shutdown.
And people don’t work late, they’re home with their families. And that’s really, really important, because, you tend to think that, you know, because you’re on a different time zone, and there is eight hours difference you’re going to be wake anyway because you are contacting Ireland, but, things shut down and just don’t- even if you’re going to drink after work, it’s from 5 to 6. You’re not going to be dragging it on, but that energy is there and I think as soon as you get over there and start meeting people and you feel it, it’s not just, you’re being boyed by it, it actually will carry on. You know, it’s not just something where you’re kind of enthusiastic when you get over there and you met people, and oh my God this could be really amazing, it actually is like that.
Now, let’s think back, what made this party such a good one? What do we want to do next time? If you are going to give a party, plan that party around a purpose, choose your guests carefully, plan invitations, plan for refreshments and entertainment, then practice to be a skillful host, make sure the party is fun for everyone.
Nas: How can people find out more about what you guys do?
Roisin: Sure yeah, and they can go on to our website cogsandmarvel.com and our emails are there, I won’t spell out my name and so they can reach out to us and we’ll be thrilled to chat with them about our experiences and how we got there and of course help them with any events they might have.
Nas: Awesome, cool, thank you.
Roisin: Cheers.
Sebastian: Great.
Nas: This is Move Your Business to the United States from Mount Bonnell Advisors, I’m Nastaran Tavakoli-Far and you’ve just heard Roisin Callaghan of Cogs & Marvel, do check them out at cogsandmarvel.com and we’ve put more details in the show notes. Our sound engineer is Emmett Glynn and our podcast manager is Nevena Paunovic. We’ve used some samples of the Prelinger Archives, we’ve got some great educational films and home movies from the US. We’ll be back in two weeks with more from another company who made the move. Send us questions you want answer to info@mtbonnell.com okay we’ll speak to you again in two weeks time.
