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IRONICALLY FOR AN outfit pitching a high-tech way of managing stress, Galvanic’s crowdfunding launch was a real white-knuckle experience.
“A number of us found ourselves waking at three in the morning to find out where the funding was at … it’s exhilarating, but it’s extremely tiring,” the company’s CEO, David Ingram, told TheJournal.ie.
In 2013 the startup he co-founded, Galvanic, became the first Irish outfit to clear a funding goal of $100,000 on popular platform Kickstarter.
But they very nearly didn’t make the target at all, a potentially fatal setback for a fledgling company trying to attract customers and investors to its stress-management device, the Pip.
It will consume you in a small organisation – you will end up downing tools for a period of four weeks with all hands on deck, even from people that aren’t working in the company, in order to get you to the funding level,” Ingram said.
‘A nice foothold’
Two years on from the successful campaign, Galvanic has built a team of 14 after starting out with only three people.
The Dublin company used the attention from the very-public launch to build recognition and funding, raising €2.3 million from investors to date.
Ingram said Galvanic had established a “nice foothold” in Europe through both online sales and a dealer network, as well as a presence in the US and Australia.
Next on the agenda was a push into Asia, where Ingram spent last week on a sales drive.
Galvanic’s product, the Pip, is a wireless, handheld bio-sensor that gauges stress by measuring “electro-dermal activity” at the fingertips, where minute changes in sweat levels reveal when the body’s flight or fight response starts to kick in.
The sensor measures that feedback eight times per second and feeds the data to an app on a connected device like a smartphone or tablet.
Designed to help users cut stress, the apps employ game-like scenarios such as a race where the on-screen character speeds up the more the device-holder relaxes.
Galvanic counts TCD psychology professor Ian Robertson as the head of its scientific advisory board and the results of a study using the device at the college are due to be presented later this year.
Ingram started the company with the device’s inventor, Daragh McDonnell, in 2011 after leaving his role as CEO of sub-prime lender Start Mortgages, a company he co-founded. The mortgage provider was taken over by an Investec subsidiary in 2010.
“When I saw (the Pip) and I used it, having come from corporate life, I was just smitten … I could see that it had the potential to be of huge benefit to people,” he said.
While Ingram and his colleagues considered sourcing the Pip cheaply offshore, they instead elected to have the device made in Cork by multinational manufacturer Flextronics.
It was important to us that this was an Irish product, manufactured in Ireland and the feedback from Europe and the States has been very positive in that regard. Manufacturing in Ireland feeds into us positioning this as a premium product.”
So back to Kickstarter. Would Galvanic repeat the process if they had their time again? Definitely, although with a little more preparation – and definitely not in the midst of summer holidays.
“Crowdfunding gave us an immediate global, opportunity – we reached media in a short space of time that we couldn’t otherwise have hoped to have get.
You don’t even have a product at that stage … it’s a prototype and an expectation of manufacturing. And access to early adopters is quite critical because they’re your test base, they can give you early reviews when they get their hands on the products … it’s a very good training ground.”
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Hows that going to work. The child minder thats takes cash only and pays no tax ????
Should be done through tax, anyone working needs childminders in some shape or form.
(Through paye of the working parent/s) through the months of July and August it should be doubled.
many claim the dole too.
It would be more in Ms. Zappone’s line to explore ways to stop the corporations dodging their taxes instead of facilitating them as she did in the Apple case with the €19 billion outstanding. That sum would cover a generation of childcare for the country,
@Kieran Mcnamee:@Kieran Mcnamee: Voluntarily notifified childminders are qualified, Garda vetted, first aid trained, registered with the county council and tax compliant. Our child ratios are capped at a maximum of 3 and our income is capped at €15k. We are hardly millionaires! Yet unfortunately we have been excluded from this scheme. We would welcome inspections that are appropriate to a home environment rather than a creche…
If both parents of the children are in work full time, give them the tax credit of 900. Problem solved.
@anto curran. Why make something simple when you can make it very complicated. How else can these spoofers appear like they’re actually doing something.
Not really as you would only be saving / getting 190 quid a year, not 900 as it would be taxed at the 21%.
So increase that to 4K tax credit for each child under 15.
To be more exact (give or take a couple of euro) a tax credit of 4300 would be needed.
4300 taxed at 21% is 903 euro.
So a 900 tax credit isn’t worth much at all!!!!
@Anto Curran: I see no problem with it being there if only one parent is working too.
Lily, you’re confusing a tax allowance with a tax credit. A tax allowance works like you say. But a tax credit is a straight deduction from your tax bill, so 900 euros is worth 900 euros as long as you’ve paid at least 900 euros in tax.
Not everyone pays tax. My husband is on minimum wage and he has my tax free allowance. He hasn’t paid tax in years
And do you pay tax?
@Frank’s Cat: tax measures favour parents earning more. Students, people who were on the dole but got work towards the end of the tax year etc would not benefit.
Children are better off being looked after by a parent. Either parent.
Failing that a granny.
I don’t care what training or certificates a childminder has, a child is much better off in the security of their own home with their own family, accompanying granny for a walk or to the shops.
In a crèche with 15 other kids is never the answer. They simply won’t get the attention or stimulation.
I appreciate it’s difficult for most people but we need to redesign society and take a long hard look at how we do things. One parent should put their career on hold for a few years to do the more important work of looking after the kids.
I career and identity (whatever that is) is more important then go ahead. Many kids will be fine but some need more attention than others.
A crèche simply doesn’t provide that.
It does provide socialisation however, Tom. Montessori also teaches kiddies pre school curriculum and makes entry into school a lot easier.
Socialisation?
10 kids in a corner?
A child trying to nap when another is crying?
Pre school curriculum?
No need.
They will learn when they go to school, no rush.
They learn nothing granny can’t teach them.
Socialisation is the thing the guilty mother tries to.console themselves with.
You know ‘she’s really happy in there because she gets to meet so many kids”
Tom, have you been to a crèche recently?! 10 kids in a corner?!
As to pre school curriculum, actually it’s really good for kids to learn early. Montessori is a very well established and acknowledged way of teaching.
I wonder why you feel a parent (though I note you said mother) would feel guilty?
I also said above that a child should be looked after by either parent.
I think it’s a no brainer.
A kid is best at home.
At home doesn’t mean they never see another kid but kids need peace too.
Getting dropped at a crèche at 8am to be collected at 5.30pm is not good.
For get the learning.
Where’s the peace, fresh air, walks in the park, feeding the ducks, trip to the shops?
Far more important than the alphabet, believe me.
And granny, Tom, no mention of grandad.
You’re falling into the trap of stereotypical comments; who says every child is dropped off early and picked up late?
There can be plenty of time for walks and picnics and football and baking and playing. My little one is at home with me, I love it, I’m also very lucky and I know it. But he is also and will be an only child. He needed time with other kiddies which wasn’t easily available, spent 3 hours a day ecce year in Creche and adored it. He was looked after by a lovely team of staff for those hours and between time at home and time there, it was a very holistic year.
We need to be realistic here. Children attend Creche, there’s no point in looking for the clock to go back, it won’t.
If the clock won’t go back that’s fine.
I’m just stating the obvious.
As for granny grandad, who cares?
You’re trying to read something that ain’t there.
Not really Tom, you’re harking back to a time of long ago. While I agree things need to change going back to the past isnt necessarily the right way. There are many parents who chose to work outside the home as well as those who must. Neither is wrong.
As to the gender, ah now Tom, you’re a man who chooses his words carefully!!
@Tom Burke: You forgot stories, learning about nature etc but I fully agree with you.
@Tom Burke: voluntarily registered childminders are often stay at home parents who create their own employment, mind their own children and enable parents who choose to or have to work outside the home to do so. We are also above board and tax compliant – yet we are excluded from this scheme.
This is just gas.
“the person that prepares the food for the children, cannot be the same person that changes the nappies.”
Don’t let the wife hear about this…trouble ahead
@Wurps: Stay at home parents should be given full dole but not need to seek work. Anybody who is earning € 200 a week and paying somebody € 200 a week to mind their kids is not fit to be a parent. This is a sham by all accounts and we will be expected to fund conception grants if we don’t start to make people look after their own kids, note I did say they should get full dole for it. It won’t be long before every sharia lover in Europe hears about this.
The Minister for Children who thinks abortion isn’t widely available enough.
U ok?
Romeo you need a nice scented cold towel to wrap around your head?
If you are an unregistered child minder and you fall for this trick…
Katherine exploring ways to bring …… nah, sounds too paly paly to me.
I’m just pointing out that the Minister for Children thinks abortion should be freely available. In the UK where abortion is freely available, 90% of Downs babies are aborted.
Of those not destroyed, over 80% learn to read and write.
What gives Minister Zappone the right to zap life?
“60% of the time it works…Every time.”
Do you scan every story to figure out a way to squeeze the word “abortion” into the comment. Is it like some kind of Catholic tourettes. How do you cope in a restaurant? ” I’ll have a the steak. Medium-well. ABORTION! And a glass of cabernet, please. NOT YOUR UTERUS! And is the desert included in the set menu?”
What are you talking about? I never mentioned the word.
Ooooh kaaaay. [backs away slowly]
This is nonsense.
Bench warrant issued for arrest of Clare Daly over speeding offence. That’s what you get for asking the hard questions!
That’s what you get for disrespecting the court and speeding. Playing the victim card won’t wash
Tis quare when a lesbian is minister for children
@Tom Burke. Of course a child is always best looked after at homecwith a parent. However this is not possible for most families. There are pros and cons to sending your child to a creche. As a childminder who is voluntarily notified with my loxal childcare comittee, a member of Childminding Ireland, registered for tax, First aid trained, Insured , undergone child protection training and Level 5 Fetac Childcatre wualification I try to provide the best of both home environment and creche as do many voluntarily notified childminders like myself. I am a mum myself. I treat the children in my care s if they were my own. I cuddle them if they are upset or sick. I take them for walks, I take them to the park. I paint with them, bake with them. We pkay outside and go on nature walks. I have an abundance of toys and books. They never watch tv in my care. The children are happy and the parents trust me to care for their kids. I see how hard it is for parents to leave their babies while they go to work. I know as I done it with my own son for 3 yrs. Parents should not be shamed or judged for going out to work.
#neveragain will trust independent politician like you her #betrayed
Strange how Ends entrusted care of children to a women who thinks most of them should be aborted. You wouldn’t need a budget for childcare if she had her way.
What about more tax credits for working parents? Single working mother or father receive half what a couple receive.
The fair and useful way to help parents and children is to have extra child benefit, as Fianna Fáil did for a bit, for parents of children under six/ Different families used it in different ways, towards a parent staying at home, towards a relative minding, towards a childminder, towards a creche, towards a playgroup for 3 hours a weekday. I agree that 3 and 4 year olds benefit from playgroups for a few hours of social play a day, but not for anything like the full working day of an adult. Kids who sleep for example 12 hours a night can be spending most of each day in an institution if not minded in a home, their own or someone else’s.
The HSE, as part of a service now run by TUSLA, employed or in some areas funded employment of Childminders’ Advisors who supported childminders in providing quality childcare. They recently dropped this. They need to do this again rather than try to push all childminders, several relatives of the children they mind, into an inspection system with rules that never expect a loving, child-led atmosphere.
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