Name: KEVIN FLYNN
County: DUBLIN
Sport: HURlING
Business: iCreative | Internet Specialists
KEVIN Flynn knows plenty about the sacrifices that must be made to balance a successful career in business and facilitate the life of a intercounty player.
His firm, iCreative, a web development company based in Glasnevin, Dublin, has grown extensively under his ownership over the past six years and the Dublin hurler has invested almost as much time into it as he has with the Dubs.
Still, the one time hurling was forced to take a back seat, Flynn suffered badly.
“It was in 2004 and we had Kilkenny in a qualifier. Everyone knew we weren’t going to beat Kilkenny, things were going very badly, team morale was zero and I was in a situation where I had no work on at all but I got a contract in America to do onsite development work. So I went. And all hell broke loose...”
Dublin hurling was torn straight down the middle. They duly lost to the Cats and went out of the championship. Flynn was not invited back to the squad when he returned to Ireland and missed the entire National League in 2005 before a change in management saw him re-instated for the championship.
Still, his loyalty has never been questioned since. The growth of the business - one which occupies and ever-evolving list of skills, tasks and technology - has been in direct proportion to the progress the Dublin hurlers have made in the past three seasons and Flynn has been very much to the fore in both.
I could have built up the web design business a lot sooner or a lot quicker but it was just not possible to fit in 12 or 14 hour days 6 or 7 days a week with inter-county training, not that I'd complain. It is also great to have the flexibility with time, but of course it does impact on what you can earn!”
From humble beginnings and all that.....
Flynn quickly learned the rule of the trade was if you did a good website, that customer would tell ten people whereas if you did a bad one, they’d tell a hundred. Now, though, he is well-established and knows how to manage his time better.
“When you work for yourself, you can take that extra hour in the morning to recover from a gym session but if you don’t put the hours in, you’re not going to get too far. The nature of this job is that you have to keep up-skilling the whole time and training people to do what you want them to do. The whole area of the internet is constantly evolving and you have to stay up-to-date.
And Flynn is very much at the sharp edge of the industry. “We use the latest web 2.0 technologies to provide our clients with cutting-edge website design and functionality which focus on increasing sales. Our client sites range from simple one page sites to complex content management and eCommerce applications. We also provide SEO, email marketing and google adwords / google maps services.”
“Because a company website is essentially your window shopfront it’s vital to make a good first impression, and at iCreative in Dublin thats what we deliver”
www.iCreative.ie
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