Once again, The Currency will be the media partner for an event that has been organised and managed from the beginning by AxisBIC. Other partners for the two-day gathering include Cork City Council, Cork County Council, Broadlake and Quintas Capital.<\/p>\n
The idea of The Entrepreneur Experience is simple, but all the better for that. Bring 24 people at various stages of the entrepreneurial journey into the same room as 24 business leaders who\u2019ve been there, done that and who still bear the scars of what that demanded of them. Then you match them up, so that the emerging entrepreneurs have a mentor for two days \u2013 but often the bond and the support doesn\u2019t end when the cars pull out of Ballymaloe.<\/p>\n
For many of those who attend, it can be a transformational couple of days. And almost everybody is astonished by how quickly barriers come down and honesty kicks in.<\/p>\n
You could try to explain the success of the event by using numbers \u2013 355 emerging entrepreneurs have taken part, mentored by 155 leaders, with \u20ac500 million raised by participating start-ups\u00a0\u2013 but that is not the kind of language that tends to be used over the two days in Ballymaloe.<\/p>\n
Instead, the people taking part use words like \u201ctrust\u201d and \u201copenness\u201d and describe an atmosphere in which people who are trying to break through in business find that they can allow themselves to be vulnerable \u2013 after a very short time in the same room as other participants. Sometimes, there can be tears, because building a company is almost always hard.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a reason for the letting go of inhibitions and frustrations that people arrive with. Much of it comes down to the gentle encouragement of those who recognise what they\u2019re witnessing, because they\u2019ve been through it themselves at various stages in their own business careers.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t think that your problems are unique \u2013 they\u2019re not. We\u2019ve all experienced them in our own start-up journey,\u201d the entrepreneur and investor Patrick Ryan said last year.<\/p>\n
As a first-time attendee in 2025 and a non-entrepreneur, the honesty was the thing that struck me most. A business publication like The Currency frequently tells success stories that major on multi-million euro investment rounds and lucrative exits, but what you don\u2019t tend to read about so much is the blood, sweat and tears that precede such happy outcomes. Even less so, the doubts and faltering self-belief that can sometimes creep into people\u2019s psyches when things are at their hardest.<\/p>\n
All of that and more comes to the surface when participants in The Entrepreneur Experience tell it like it really is.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Entrepreneur-Experience-1-1-700x466.jpg\")
The Entrepreneur Experience produces an honesty that\u2019s rare in networking events. Photo: John Allen<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s something very different about when all these people come into a room,\u201d says Susie Kilcoyne, founder of the e-commerce platform Locket, who took part in 2025.<\/p>\n
Oran O\u2019Flynn, CEO and co-founder of Talio, an AI-powered consumer tech company, put his finger on the dynamic at that gathering: \u201cOnce one person mentioned their problem, everyone was like, \u2018OK, I can tell my problems too.\u2019 Because I think it\u2019s the easiest thing in a start-up to say that everything\u2019s going good.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was another thing that struck me. All of the emerging entrepreneurs were asked at the outset to go on stage and give a very brief summary of what their idea was. Some of those who delivered their pitch with the most fluency and apparent confidence were later to be found unburdening themselves. And that frustrated passion felt far more real.<\/p>\n
For the organisers, AxisBIC, the experience is all about giving those selected access to a powerful network of collaboration and innovation, but in an atmosphere very different to a typical networking event.<\/p>\n
David McKernan, who built and later sold the hand-roasted coffee brand Java Republic, has been a long-time supporter of the event. \u201cI\u2019ve never seen honesty build up so fast in a group of people who\u2019ve never really met each other,\u201d he said of last year\u2019s event. He attended with his son Greg, an aspiring entrepreneur in the food business.<\/p>\n
I interviewed McKernan on stage and his story was so compelling that the audience gave him a standing ovation at the end. Here was the entrepreneurial journey told warts-and-all \u2013 all the mistakes made along the way, the nightmare of near-bankruptcy, and then, finally, the happy ending. We met up again a few weeks later and McKernan went into even more hair-raising detail in an interview for The Currency<\/a>.<\/p>\n Before the 2025 event got going, I spoke to Patrick Magee, CEO and co-founder of Wiistream, which offers live-streaming and content management solutions to sports organisations. There was a touch of nervousness in the room as people chatted politely over coffees and teas. Magee was wondering how he\u2019d get on with the seasoned entrepreneur he\u2019d been paired with, the ShinAwilL founder and CEO Larry Bass.<\/p>\n Afterwards, his verdict was emphatic: \u201cIt\u2019s hard to put into words just how valuable the experience was \u2013 part bootcamp, part therapy, part pure inspiration. Larry Bass was nothing short of brilliant. Larry shared the real highs and lows of building ShinAwiL and the honesty, insight, and humility he brought to every conversation was something special.\u201d<\/p>\n A few weeks ago, the Louth-based founder of My Forever Tooth Fairy, Emma Duffy, was named as that county\u2019s emerging businesswoman of the year by Network Ireland.<\/p>\n Duffy was one of the 2025 cohort in Ballymaloe. Another striking statistic is that over the past five years, an average of 48 per cent of the emerging businesses at the event were founded or co-founded by women. Duffy admitted in the last session of the weekend that she had spent a lot of time \u201cin the weeds\u201d, trying to juggle a lot of moving parts.<\/p>\n That session was chaired by Peaches Kemp<\/a>, co-founder of Itsa Bagel and other food companies. Near the end, Kemp asked the emerging entrepreneurs what they were going to do differently, starting on Monday morning.<\/p>\n \u201cWithout thinking,\u201d recalled Duffy, \u201cI said, \u201cI\u2019m going to sit in my chair and finally believe that I belong there.\u2019\u201d I was sitting across from Duffy and it was obvious her words had struck a chord with everyone in the room.<\/p>\n In October, there will be more honesty like that, as a new cohort of emerging entrepreneurs descends on Ballymaloe.<\/p>\n Applications for the 2026 Entrepreneur Experience \u2013 organised by Axis BIC in partnership with Cork City Council, Cork County Council, Broadlake, Quintas Capital and The Currency \u2013 can be made here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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David McKernan being interviewed on stage by The Currency\u2018s Alan English at the 2025 Entrepreneur Experience. Photo: John Allen<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Entrepreneur-Experience-3-700x466.jpg\")
ShinAwiL\u2019s Larry Bass with emerging entrepreneurs at last year\u2019s event. Photo: John Allen<\/p>\n