What happens when ambitious founders have funding, connections and the skills to build for themselves? That question was at the heart of the Ladies Who Launch event that NoCodeLab.ai was invited to attend at Stripe’s Dublin HQ on 12 October. And there was no better place to ask it!
Stripe was founded by Irish brothers Patrick Collison and John Collison. Their journey from the village of Dromineer in County Tipperary to building one of the world’s leading online payments platforms was a true inspiration for every founder in the room. It’s also a reminder that Ireland is a superb place to incubate a business and prepare it for global scale.
After a welcome from Sarah Friar, Co-Founder of Ladies Who Launch and CFO of OpenAI, and Eileen O’Mara, Vice Chair of Stripe, the evening delivered founder stories, honest conversations about money and live AI demos.
Here are five lessons every founder can use.
1. Build for the exit from day one
In Big Ambition Starts at Home, Katie Doran, CEO of Consello Ireland, joined ‘Tokunboh Ishmael, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Alitheia Capital. Katie built her Belfast business, The Lanyon Group, with an international sale in mind, and achieved it when global advisory firm Consello acquired it.
Her formula was practical: keep client service high, get finances and processes in order, and build a reputation a buyer can trust.
2. Price for how customers really use AI
In From Prompt to Purchase, Sinéad Harcourt of Stripe used plain language prompts to create products, pricing tiers and payment links for a fictional business.
She also raised a question every AI founder needs to answer: what happens when a flat monthly price no longer reflects how much customers use your product, or what it costs to serve them?
3. Match your funding to the business you want to build
The Get That Money, Honey panel brought together Mary McKenna of AwakenAngels, Rosie Rios of Red River Associates, Sarah McKenna of Wayflyer and Wendy Slattery of Kaidron.
They covered customer revenue, grants, crowdfunding, debt and equity, with one clear message: there is no single right route.
Rosie, the 43rd Treasurer of the United States, quipped that she has probably single-handedly created more money than anyone else. With her signature on billions of dollars of US currency, nobody in the room could argue.
4. Start with one recurring task
In Beyond the Hype, Patricia Scanlon PhD, former Chair of Ireland’s AI Council, moderated a conversation with India Healy O’Connor of Linda AI and Victoria Finlay of The MenoPal.
They showed AI doing real work, from managing clinic bookings to helping clinicians spot patterns in women’s health data. Patricia’s advice for getting started: automate one recurring task.
5. Treat AI as your sparring partner
Stephanie Tran of OpenAI closed with a live demo for a fictional Irish candle company, using ChatGPT to challenge an investor pitch and build campaign materials.
Her advice to founders: use it as “your sparring partner, your chief of staff.”
From watching AI to building with it
That last lesson is why the evening resonated with NoCodeLab.ai. We help non-technical professionals build AI capability they can use and own. Last year we trained and mentored 3,500 people across the UK, Europe and the US, and it was clear how much we can contribute to this community.
Thank you to AwakenHub for the introduction, to Stripe for opening their doors, and to Ladies Who Launch for bringing so many brilliant women into one room.
We look forward to delivering a programme for AwakenHub’s founder community.
Let’s connect
If you were in the room, or you’re a founder ready to build with AI, send me a connection request and mention this article. I’d love to hear what you’re working on.
Learn more:
About NoCodeLab.ai: https://nocodelab.ai/about
About AwakenHub: https://www.awakenhub.com/about
About Ladies Who Launch: https://www.ladieswholaunch.org