Why the Intern Programme?
It All Begins Here
Jack’s Vision
One of my main aims over the next 30 years is to create more entrepreneurs in Ireland. Why?
Well, having hired teams across the world, I genuinely believe that Irish people might be some of the most ready-made entrepreneurs in the world. People here are incredibly smart, have a ton of street smarts, we work incredibly hard compared to other countries, and of course we have a little Irish charm (that would even make Del Boy proud).
For me, I was extremely lucky to meet the Irish entrepreneur Liam Casey when I was in my mid twenties, who I had the pleasure of working with for two years. Liam is one of the purest entrepreneurs I've met. He is always on, always selling, and he has an uncanny ability to make people believe things are possible that probably shouldn't be.
While working with Liam, I learned a lot and without that experience I would have never have started as successful a business as we did with Wayflyer. And now I feel like it's time to pay it forward and pass a few learnings on to the younger generation.
Lesson Number 1 - Seeing Is Believing
So I still remember my first week working for Liam in San Francisco. I landed on a Sunday and ventured into the office full of enthusiasm on Monday morning. Day 1 began with an 8am meeting with Paddy Cosgrave, next up was a senior exec from P&G, followed by a meeting with a founder about acquiring their business. The variation of people I met was incredible, the only thing consistent among the meetings was my complete inability to follow the conversation or understand anything that they were talking about. I sat in the room, with my head down like a kid who hadn't done his homework, hoping that no one would ask me a question for fear they'd figure me out!
I remember ringing my dad from the hotel room that night, saying I thought I should come home because otherwise I was going to mess things up. And, like all good dads, he reminded me that I was smart, hard-working, and typically good at figuring things out - so on I went.
During my first six to twelve months of being exposed to founders in SF, I thought everyone was Steve Jobs reincarnated, or the next Elon Musk. I thought they were the smartest people I'd ever met, and naively every business was the best business of all time! Not once did I ever believe I could do what they were doing.
Then slowly but surely, I started to think maybe these people weren't the geniuses I had made them out to be, before fully graduating to thinking that I could probably do a better job than most, myself.
These two years led to a huge change in mindset for me. I was meeting all of these founders that were doing amazing things, raising money and building products that people wanted and needed. It opened my eyes to a world that I didn't know existed, and spending enough time around these people helped me realise that I was just as capable (if not more so) than most of them!
The classic tale of seeing is believing has never been more accurate, and I thank Liam for opening my eyes to what was possible.
Lesson Number 2 - Learning to Think for Yourself, and Figure Things Out on Your Own
So like most entrepreneurs, trying to get Liam's attention for more than 5 minutes was a dead-end. Initially, I found myself chasing him around the clock for answers or to get his permission for something. Then one day I decided, I'm just going to use my own head, guess what he'd do, and do exactly that.
I've always loved the saying, 'let someone think for themselves and they become 100 times smarter'. This couldn't have been more true for me.
Developing the freedom to think for myself, and accepting that I would make some mistakes along the way - this was the entrepreneurial mindset I had worshipped a few months earlier.
There's a great clip of Steve Jobs discussing consultants, which I'm sure many of you have seen. He basically says that people never really learn, unless they take responsibility for decisions themselves. It's only when people make the call, see it through, get it wrong, fix it and carry the scar tissue with them that they truly build judgement.
Unfortunately doing repetitive tasks where one replicates what was done before, will never compare to giving someone real responsibility and control over a project through to the end.
So How Does the Intern Programme Help with These?
Lesson 1 in Practice
Well for Lesson Number 1 - every time I meet aspiring entrepreneurs or young people I try to make sure they realise that if a normal bloke like me can start one of Europe's fastest ever Billion dollar businesses from a basement on Baggot Street, then any of them can too.
With the programme, our aim is to have interns come in and work alongside us. We've shaped a network of Ireland's most talented people, building some of the biggest businesses in the world. It's hard not to have your eyes opened to what is possible when you spend a few hours around the infectious energy that happens here on Baggot Street.
If we can even give them a glimpse of what's possible, then job well done for us!
Lesson 2 in Practice
And for Lesson Number 2 - every entrepreneur in the world has a list of projects that they wish they could get to, but there aren't enough hours in the day.
What are we going to do with these projects at HappyStack? We're going to give our interns an idea and full autonomy to figure it out by themselves. By giving young, intelligent people standalone projects, they are getting their first taste for starting something and seeing it through. The key here is, when someone asks what they should be doing, there's only one answer - what do you think we should do, and go do that. It will either work, they'll get a big clap on the back, or it won't and they'll move onto the next thing! Failing isn't the end of the world.
This isn't another pencil pushing internship where a 22-year old is doing repetitive tasks for a 26-year old. These are real projects, real thinking, real wins and real failures.
To give credit where credit is due. During the summer, a young lad, Jack Flanagan, who caddied for me in the West of Ireland came in for an internship along with Harry MacGoey and Oran O'Sullivan. We didn't want to have them spend all day cleaning data in a spreadsheet. Instead we tasked them with growing our Youtube channel. They started off by creating TikTok's which went viral with hundreds of thousands of views. A week of ideas later, and they were off to the races. It had taken us 6 months to pick up our first 1,500 subscribers. They growth-hacked us to 4,500 in a month.
They loved it, and we loved it. So we thought, let's figure out how to do more of this.
We gave them full responsibility for launching this exact program - from branding it and building out a marketing plan, through to working out an operational plan and helping build the mentor network. They've taken an idea, and seen it through from start to finish.
The key thing here is, if we can help people figure this out in their early 20's, imagine what they'll be capable of in their mid to late twenties. They will have years of critical thinking and experience behind them, and they'll be set up to build some really successful businesses if they decide to go down this path. We won't turn you into a great entrepreneur in 8 months, but we'll sure as hell open your eyes up to what's possible and get you to understand that you're more capable than you ever believed!
So Who Is This For?
This is for the people that have ideas around starting businesses, but don't know where to start.
And we're not looking for a finished product or anything like that. You also don't need to know if entrepreneurship is for you or not. If there's an itch there, the earlier you scratch it and find out the better!
When I think back to myself, the most exciting path out of college was the Jameson graduate program. And I would have loved to have done it, but I was far too scared to apply! The idea of making a video of myself sent shivers down my spine (to be fair, it was the early days of content!).
I have no major regrets in life, the only small ones have always been the shots I didn't take. So I'd encourage anyone who has an itch, to go for it.
For those of you who need an extra little push, if you do any of the below, there's probably an itch there worth scratching:
You have a notes folder full of random words / ideas / inspiration
You occasionally make grand business / life plans after midnight for some reason
You talk about business ideas, but have never acted on one - probably because you didn't know where to start
You are intrigued or love reading about new ways of doing things (doesn't matter the field)
You are interested in businesses, how they work; how they started; who were the people who were driving forces behind them
Even though you don't necessarily show it, you have this inner belief that you can figure anything out
What Does Success Look Like?
Having never been one to undershoot, we'd love to put 1,000 people through the programme over the next 10 years. 1,000 people working on projects that entrepreneurs wish they could do, across great Irish startups in our network.
Some of these people will go on to work at these businesses. Others will go on to start their own businesses. At HappyStack we will fund and support some of these entrepreneurs, knowing that those businesses will in turn hire many thousands of people across the country.
And those successes will feed more successes.
Ireland is an amazing place, a place where a person is no more than one-step removed from another. And the great thing about this, is that a small group of people can truly impact a nation.