Full coverage: Entrepreneurship

What happens every October at Ballymaloe House Hotel, when seasoned business leaders get together with emerging entrepreneurs, is a rare kind of connection. Applications for the 2026 event are now open.

Coffee pioneer Colin Harmon wrote the book on the coffee business. 16 years since founding 3fe, he’s back with a second edition.

“Delegate, don’t abdicate” has been Jack Kirwan’s mantra to turn Sprout & Co into a business on track to run 14 restaurants with 500 staff. Good hiring and a structured system are key to this phase of growth.

“Some of them are going to fail," says CEO Chris Burge of the equity crowdfunder "but the upside opportunity is huge for some of those early-stage businesses".

After steering CityJet through growth and crises, founder Pat Byrne has exited the airline he built — again. However, the entrepreneur has no intention of retiring.

Change by Degrees, the business co-founded by Tara Shine and Madeleine Murray to help companies and their staff achieve “sustainability as a superpower”, is closing down in the face of green policy roll-backs.

Bootstrapping and doing everything yourself puts early-stage entrepreneurs in the seductive position of being in full control, but this comes at a growing cost over time.

Four years ago, Chevron College was a 56-person training provider with a founder determined to triple the business. Today, Karl Fitzpatrick has delivered on that promise — and now he wants to build a €100m education group spanning Ireland and the UK.

In the third part of this series, fictional entrepreneurs Sarah and Jack Harbour structure their business and assets to attract buyers and maximise their net proceeds from a sale.

Entrepreneurs are busy with day-to-day operations. But long-term value creation depends on much more structured plans. This three-part series tracking a fictional family business explains how.