Our second to last day in Ireland was another eventful one. We started the day off with breakfast per usual, and then got to hear from a guest speaker, Stephen Dillion, the founder of Startups.ie, and finished off our day with a visit to the Airbnb EMEA headquarters.
To start off the day, we were able to hear from Stephen Dillion. He launched Startups.ie as a nonprofit website meant to connect entrepreneurs with each other, allowing them to share questions and advice with other people who may be experts at the field of interest. It has become the leading independent resource for entrepreneurship in Ireland, and also houses the National Startup Awards every year, which is where it makes its profits off of sponsors. In addition to his website, he is also an avid entrepreneur himself in the drink/ alcohol industry. In fact, he has a chain of off-licenses as well as Ireland’s largest online store for craft beer. Furthermore, he launched his own line of low calorie alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages to conform to the trend towards health and well-being. This fits in with the concept of managing in a complex environment, as he told us that entrepreneurship is all about finding a job you’re passionate about and making it work in the best way possible. Working on your own rather than for a company allows people to make changes and shift toward what will make their company the best. This is the reason why the low calorie line has been successful, because he has adapted to his environment in order to maximize profits.
Our last stop of the day was to the Airbnb headquarters in the Docklands of Dublin. The Dublin campus is based off of customer experience and building trusting relationships on a peer-to-peer basis, as well as on a customer-to-company basis. This vision of their company was thoroughly expressed in their company culture. Airbnb bases its work and events both inside and outside of the office on a communal environment. For example, within the office, the separate sectors (teams) share their office spaces and never have a set desk space, allowing them to move around every day and meet all the people that are a part of their teams. Outside of the office, Airbnb orchestrates events and experiences for their employees, basing them off of shared interests that the employees have, such as cooking or yoga, rather than a happy hour which may not be enjoyed by everyone within the workforce. My favorite thing about the culture of Airbnb was their efforts to foster a sense of belonging and feeling at home, both inside and out of the workplace and for their customers. They are looking to connect people and create relationships, which is a key aspect that many companies don’t make a valiant effort to do.
Today gave me a lot of interest in another great company in Airbnb, which is probably my favorite company visit that we’ve been on so far. From the way the workplace is set up to the community culture that goes along with it, I was thoroughly impressed. I’m ready to see what our last day in Dublin has in store for us tomorrow.