Cork: An entrepreneurial spirit that proves city is fit for purpose

If he had to do it all over again, Pat Phelan – one of Cork’s best-known serial entrepreneurs – would choose no other place to begin his journey in start-up success.

“I would absolutely start in Cork again if I was building a business from scratch,” Phelan told the Business Post.

“The city has a highly skilled workforce and companies who choose Cork city as their location for business will have access to a large pool of talent.”

The one-time butcher garnered headlines in 2015 following the sale of Trustev, the fraud prevention business he had co-founded with Chris Towers in Cork less than three years earlier. The deal was valued at €40 million.

By that stage, Phelan had already founded and sold Cubic Telecom, another successful venture, and, more recently, he has turned his attention to the cosmetic market with the launch of Sisu Aesthetic Clinics.

Now, his focus has shifted again – this time to fitness technology. Phelan is the chairman of another venture called VIV – Vitals In View.

“It’s a fitness tracker that looks at blood sugars and weight loss,” he said. “It measures and optimises your energy in real-time, using blood glucose, and sets out to solve the very big problems of obesity and wellness.”

Phelan had picked up some high-profile investors in the US for VIV, he said. “There is a team of around 14 at the moment, led by Peter Nelson – the former head of HBO Sports and Rurik Bradbury.” Bradbury was the former chief marketing officer at Trustev.

The key to running any successful business is to surround yourself with the best people, Phelan said. “It is all about having the best people. Hire the best and hire way better than yourself.”

The entrepreneurial spirit Phelan embodies is “embraced and encouraged across Cork,” he said, and start-ups in the city and county have ready access to valuable supports.

“Post-Covid, there is great energy and lots of exciting new start-ups in Cork,” Phelan said.

“Riley – a mail order subscription service for eco-friendly period products – is one impressive new business, and we are going to see more and more of these kinds of successful start-ups.

“Once you start the ball rolling, there’s a zone that happens and we have a better chance of this in Cork than in Dublin, because the bigger FDIs aren’t here.”

The county had “tremendous assets” in both University College Cork and Munster Technological University, Phelan said.

“The NDRC pre-accelerator programme – a six-week programme, offering mentorship for start-ups – has become invaluable.”

For other start-ups in Cork and elsewhere keen to succeed, Phelan advised a laser-focus on customer service. “Keep in touch with them and make them a customer for life,” he said.

His own laser-focus right now is trained on the US market where he has big plans for Sisu in the southeast.

“We are about to sign six leases in Florida. Those are multimillion dollar investments,” he said.

“From there, we will move into Texas and we also think there’s an opportunity further north for a 200-clinic group we can take public in the next two to three years.”