Hey everyone! I’m Andy, I am the Product Designer here at MiniCorp. In this monthly blog series, I am going to list and share my thoughts on my Top 5 favourite UI/Interactions/Designs from the past month. Hope you enjoy 👌

1: Fluid Slider by Virgil Pana @virgil_pana

I like this interaction because of it’s benefit to the user. The amount or value often gets lost under the finger as you slide it. By providing the user with this view, the user can make a more accurate selection. Clever stuff, I must say!!

2: Photo Editing Menu by Luboš Volkov @OtherPlanets

EMBRACE THE NOTCH!! Everyone went crazy over the iPhone X’s “Notch” when it was announced at Apple’s 2017 Keynote. To see designers all over the world embrace the notch and even incorporate it into their designs and interactions, is pretty cool.

3: Salon Booking by Divan Raj @desdivj

As well as having nice, fluid transitions, I really enjoy the simplicity and ease of use of the date picker aspect of this design. I had been designing a date picker for one of our projects here at MiniCorp when I came across this one, so it immediately resonated with me. Really like the subtle animations to 👌

4: E-Commerce Transition by Den Serduke @DenSerduke

Along with having an awesome sounding name, Den Serduke put together this awesome E-Commerce transition. The transition to the product page is super cool and his use of white space is very nice. This entire e-Commerce project is awesome, definitely check it out on Den’s Behance Account.

5: Intelligent Home App by Knock Zou

Smart home technology is booming at the minute with the likes of Nest, Tado and Eir all offering automated solutions in home energy and security. When I came across the “Intelligent Home” app by Knock Zou, I immediately loved the dark UI. I know it’s unconventional to the subject matter (usually favouring a brighter UI) BUT, I love a good dark UI and seeing things that go against the norm. Fair play, Knock. You rebel!

Andy 🤘

The Road So Far….

When I landed my first job in design, the joy was so overwhelming that I thought I might be brought back down to earth once I started. Maybe the role would be too demanding for someone without a lot of experience in the industry. Perhaps I wouldn’t get on with the people I will be working with. However, when I landed in MiniCorp for my first day, it was the polar opposite. Everyone was so friendly and welcoming and I immediately felt right at home here. There was an air of positivity and fun about the place that made the settling in process a breeze.

After getting set up on Sketch, Slack, Gmail and all that jazz, my first project was soon thrust upon me. The client was a company called Unity Street, an app to discover brands, share their products and earn commission from sales. The first version of the app had already been shipped, so, my first task was to take a look at their sales flow and see if I could improve the process going forward into V2 of the app. It was time for me to apply everything I learned from my studies and, without sounding too big headed, it all went really smoothly and I was a lot quicker at the process than I had first imagined I would be. I did my research, developed user flows, low-fidelity wireframes, high fidelity designs and even got to conduct a usability testing session. I had done all this before in college but getting to apply it to a real world product was such a great experience.

From here, I iterated quickly on the feedback from the usability test and after having another feedback session in-house, I handed the designs off to our senior engineer, Steve. The feeling that I had just completed my first project for MiniCorp was awesome!! To be able to finally say, “My designs will be in the App Store” was just amazing!!

But, of course, as soon as I was finished this project, I was straight on to the next one, which was the complete redesign of the Unity Street website, with the objective being to make it more informative for the users. On top of that, I was also tasked with the redesign of the MiniCorp website. Two complete website redesigns on my agenda, a jam packed few weeks ahead, this was the stuff I was hoping to be doing when I finished studying. Being given the creative freedom to experiment and really think outside the box, it was so exciting. At this stage I was really settling in at MiniCorp and what I had thought would be quite overwhelming (being handed two big projects at the same time), I was able to take it in my stride and get cracking. I really felt as if I was finding my feet as a product designer at MiniCorp and my confidence was really building. The main factor behind this being the constant support, motivation and recognition from everyone on the team here at MiniCorp. I was able to go to them for help, feedback or even just a chat. Their feedback was always constructive and I never felt out of my depth as the designer here.

And now, V2 of the Unity Street app has shipped, the redesigned Unity Street website is live and, soon, the brand new MiniCorp website will also be live. All of this within my first month (5 weeks really, but, that doesn’t have the same ring to it as a blog title). I am super proud of the work I’ve done to date and I’m loving every minute of being a part of the MiniCorp team. Long may it continue.

What Have I Learned?

Starting a new job can be scary. Especially if it’s a job/role that you REALLY want to do well in. My advice for anyone in that position, dive straight in and believe in yourself. You already have the tools to do the job. Couple this with your passion for what you do and you’ll be flying in no time.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. If you are unsure about a certain aspect of a project, don’t be afraid to speak up and say “Hey, I don’t really understand this. Can you explain what it means?”. This is WAY better than ploughing ahead and realising at the end you were on the completely wrong track.

Don’t take feedback to heart. You work on your designs for hours on end and you put a lot of effort into them so it’s easy to get attached to them. Everyone sees things with a different perspective and may see things that you missed or could be portrayed in a better way. You need to be able to take this as constructive criticism. Remember, everyone on the team wants the product to succeed as much as you.

What’s Next?

Without giving too much away, we have some big projects coming up here at MiniCorp so I’m really looking forward to working on them with the team. I will also be setting up the MiniCorp Dribble account and creating content for that from our previous case studies.

On a more personal level, I have started learning how to illustrate. Just sticking to smaller objects to begin with such as icons and simple illustrations of small physical objects but I hope to move on to more intricate illustrations soon. I also want to get better at writing. Therefore, I will be challenging myself to write a monthly blog for MiniCorp on my top 5 favourite Designs of the month. These designs could be UIs, illustrations, websites, graphic design, all the way to physical objects. Anything creative that tickles my fancy, really.

It’s an exciting time here at MiniCorp. It’s awesome to be a part of it!!

Throughout my time searching for Product Design jobs, one question always arose in interviews: “Have you any experience collaborating with/handing off designs to developers?”. It was very early in my design career and I had very little experience in this area. With all these companies making such a big deal about this, I expected the process of handing off to devs to be quite a complicated ordeal.

When I landed my design role as a Product Designer with MiniCorp, while being quite confident in my abilities as a designer, I was nervous about the process of handing off my designs to our awesome development team. What if I do it wrong? These guys are gonna think I don’t know what I’m doing! The world is, literally, gonna end if I mess this up (slight overreaction, but still). However, I didn’t need to be so worried. Before actually handing anything off, I was tasked with researching new ways to hand off to development. This allowed me to find a way that I was comfortable with and that would speed up the process for not just me, but the whole team. I had known about Zeplin for a while and had read about what it was used for, but never had any hands on experience with the product. Now seemed like the perfect time to jump in and give it a try.

Upon completing the designs for my first project, I exported my designs to Zeplin, notified Steve and got the thumbs up almost immediately. Zeplin had just made what I had previously thought would be complicated and difficult, a quick and painless process for myself and our engineering team.

The benefits of using Zeplin are numerous and we have already improved our handoff process here at MiniCorp by implementing it into our workflow. Here’s a brief outlined on some of the benefits I have got from using Zeplin:

• I can export artboards directly to Zeplin. Once I’ve sliced the designs, exporting my artboards is just a couple of clicks away.

• After I have exported to Zeplin, it automatically creates specs for the developer to work from.

• Zeplin recognises the document colours and fonts from Sketch and allows me to create a styleguide for the developer. It even creates little snippets of code for the colours!!

• Zeplin generates all sizes of assets based on whether we are dealing with an iOS app, Android app or web app.

• We can set up Slack notifications for the team for when anything gets updated within Zeplin. This is great for keeping everyone on the team in the loop.

My early impressions of Zeplin are very positive. It’s ease of use and functionality meant it was easy to implement into our workflow and we are already seeing the benefits of using it.

I’m sure the more we use it, the quicker our entire process of shipping products will increase even more so. I would highly recommend jumping on the Zeplin bandwagon, especially to junior designers who maybe feel a little anxious about handing off to developers for the first time. It certainly took the worry and anxiety out of the process for me.

I need someone who understands the power of telling a story. That understands that the battle on launching a successful product is won or lost depending on how the story is told. Someone who is passionate and creative about how they tell that story and believes in a world of limitless potential. You just have to unlock yourself first.

I’m Brian and I own and run an agency in Dublin, Ireland called MiniCorp. Together with an exceptional team we take our clients ideas and build them into something real. We believe in validating assumptions early. Being really clever with how we build the first version and of course focusing on profitability as soon as possible. It’s everything from that initial A4 piece of paper, sketching out the product to launching the iPhone & Android application and seeing millions of people use the product.

It’s undoubtedly difficult but we’re a passionate and hungry team and we’re looking to expand this into marketing realm.

Over the past I’ve noticed that bringing the product to market and leaning on external marketing agencies is not good enough for us in MiniCorp. It’s not giving the product the best chance in the market and so growing a marketing department internally feels right.

Here’s what’s key to me:

• Running client social media accounts including being really creative on Instagram Stories, Snapchat and Anchor.
• Coming up with new and creative ways to tell the world about a product. We’ll provide the resources.
• Ability to run an event. We prefer hosting really small intimate events where the attendee’s get substantial value. You’ll need to help with this.
• It would be a huge benefit if you know your way around a camera but not a show stopper. If you don’t, make sure you have some really good videographer connections we can hire.
• The passion for growth. We believe in growing departments from the inside out at MiniCorp. This means although you might only be a team of one in the marketing dept of MiniCorp to begin with, we want you to own it and grow it.

Does this sound like you? Please drop me an email directly brian@minicorp.ie.

If you know someone who might be interested, please share! I’d really appreciate it.

In December 2016, I made a conscious decision to go all in on video. I knew that if our agency was to be noticed amongst the crowd we must not only create exception products but exceptional content also.

We believe in being an honest, open and transparent agency. The Q&A series provides a channel for us to take our learnings from creating successful products and companies and give back to the community. To inspire and motivate others to build.

Now, just a month later we have published over 20 MiniCorp Q&A shows plus another MiniCorp interview. We've published to Facebook, YouTube and provided live streams to the show over Instagram Live, Facebook Live and Twitter/Periscope Live.

When we try things, we really try things. I'm proud of our team and the content we've created. Some stats:

• People have watched us for 6,771 minutes
• We've gained just under 10,000 views
• Our best performing video has been episode 03 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTehUOgutFg

Launching The Podcast

It's time to bring the Q&A to the audio world. We felt if you are commuting to work or out for a run, you should have great content to accompany you.

Today, we're launching the MiniCorp Q&A Series Podcast! You can find it on the iTunes store.

• View on the iTunes Store
• View on SoundCloud
• RSS Feed
• View on YouTube

Got a Question?

We'll get it answered. The Q&A show is about interacting with our audience and answering any questions you have. If you have a question you would like answered on the show, email hello@minicorp.ie.

Hey Everyone,

We are back after a long break from the Design Mix sharing our thoughts on new products or things that we think are awesome, hope you enjoy 👌🏼

1. HUGE 10 top albums of the 2016

Coming into 2017 there were a lot of blog posts around the best albums of the year, but HUGE created an awesome list of albums released last year. Not only is the list pretty spicy, the design of the holding pages is pretty juicy 🍎. The designs were created by the awesome Chris Cubellis, go check out more of his work 👏

2. Math for Motion

Being the bit of the nerd that I am, this kind of had to creep into this Design Mix... Number one for its cleverness and number two also for its usefulness, being an ex-engineer these types of visuals could have helped greatly when I needed to learn this kind of stuff.

3. GitScout for GitHub Issues

I'm not sure if most people are like this but, If the app can be downloaded instead of being a web app then it is a major plus. If the web app is really well built and looks as good as this then that is a double plus. The devs in office love ❤️ their products, if team members were out of office or working remotely it could be a tool that would be awesome to use.

4. Hindsight by Netta Marshall

Not all projects have to be big amazing things that take months upon months to build, sometimes they can be small, interesting and something people might actually take a note from whether it be a contact, information or advice. Netta has done just that, she has built something insightful for young designers with the input of other leaders in the industry.

4. Students Guide to the Internet

Resourceful websites are great to keep track off with regards learning. This repository created by Aaron Gilmore is filled with all things design, you should check it out especially if you are new to it all 👌🏼

Time for me to peace out folks, any recommendations on what you want to see more of our maybe you just want to give some feedback, reach out to us we don't bite 🙊 @notyouravedelta @minicorphq

Stay Curious Everyone,

Danielle

You got it, we're doing our first giveaway at MiniCorp. Actually, we're going to be running a giveaway every week in January! All of the prizes have helped us build great products and companies and can help you do the same.

The giveaways will be announced on Tuesday in our MiniCorp Q&A and the winner will be picked the following Monday.

This week we're giving away three inspirational books that have helped us to build great products and companies here in MiniCorp.

• Rework by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson
• Sprint by Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky & Braden Kowitz
• Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh

How to Enter

Simple, two simple tasks and your in:

• Subscribe to our YouTube channel. Here's a [link].(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6nKHiMGCQg)
• Leave a comment on episode 18 of our MiniCorp Q&A with your most inspirational book.

Best of luck and keep shipping!

The meaning of the word entrepreneur has evolved. How entrepreneurship is defined now is drastically different to how it was 5+ years ago. The wikipedia definition even lends a notion to it's definition being outdated:

Entrepreneurship has traditionally been defined as the process of designing, launching and running a new business, which typically begins as a small business, such as a startup company, offering a product, process or service for sale or hire.

How our careers evolve has changed. We have become our own entities. Our own personal brands. This is true if you are the freelancer or employee number 140 at Dropbox. You are no longer hidden under the umbrella of a company. You need to step out into the light to be noticed. You need discover, build and promote your brand.

Along side our brand, we are running our own personal business. Through designers posting their latest creations to Dribbble and developers writing masterpieces on GitHub, we are constantly promoting our own personal company. We are showcasing our portfolios.

We have become completely decentralized from the company we work for and seen more as individual islands. This has a huge advantage as we can navigate across organizations with ease, solving challenges as we transverse. Progressing our personal business step by step. The flip side to these benefits is each person must now posses the skills to showcase their work in the right environments. Winning contracts and business opportunities. You must now, more than ever, be able to sell yourself.

You're already running a business. It's yourself. How you build, promote and execute on that business is what differs you. What makes you stand out from the crowd and progresses you forward.

Our designer Danielle Morgan shares some recent finds and gorgeous web and design inspiration.

Things have been busy, busy, busy but we are ready to get stuck back into some of the new exciting things in the product world 🌴

Enjoy! 😊

1. AIGA - Eyes on Design

This beauty is great for a little bit of downtime in your day. Sit back, relax and have a quick read of some awesome articles.

2. Ryan Putnam

Wowza, this guy's graphics are pretty dope, from his quirky little icons to bigger, contemporary pieces, his work is incredible!

3. Creative Process

This actually is a little bit off-topic, but I'm a designer – my mind wanders. If you too are a designer reading this, keep chugging along. You are doing awesome; we tend to have this thing where we have a constant dialogue of self-doubt in our heads. Try to train yourself out of it. That's what I am trying to do anyway 🌴✌🏽.

4. Teenage Engineering 0D-11

The Fabulous Tom Dixon has collaborated with the awesome Teenage Engineering to give the famous OD-11 speaker a little doing up and they are dreamy. Everyone loves some good physical product design 👌🏽.

5. Ship It Steve 🚀

Our office here in Dublin has been given a bit of a make-over. The amazing Vanessa Power came into to create a sprinkle of sheer talent onto our blank canvas and what a baller she is at it! Check out our time-lapse here.

6. Intercome Onboarding

The awesome Intercom have just released a really useful e-book which is FREE to download 👏🏼 and really good read for anyone wanting to gain a better understanding of the onboarding process. Extra bonus is the awesome visuals from Justin Pervorse 🌴

✌🏽 Laters!

P.S. Hungry for more? Check out our previous #mcmm :

MiniCorp Mega Mix ONE

MiniCorp Mega Mix TWO

Picking what quote to emblazon on the wall of your new office is like picking a tattoo – you want to be very, very sure you like it.

When MiniCorp moved to our new office on Mespil Road, we wanted to put our stamp on it, and create somewhere clients would enjoy coming and somewhere we could showcase our values and how we like to work.

We enlisted the help of local artist Vanessa Power of Signs of Power to kick things off in a dramatic way. Hand-painted signs have seen a revival in recent years and we loved Vanessa's work, which can be seen all across the city. Sign painting requires careful craftsmanship and time – there are no shortcuts. It was fascinating watching Vanessa work, painstakingly painting each letter and its detail.

Watch a time-lapse of the entire process below.

So what does "Ship it Steve" mean?

A big part of the culture here at MiniCorp is rapid iteration, working to 'ship' code quickly, test it, learn from testing and users and improve. Launch, learn, improve and repeat.

Steve is one of our senior engineers and chief shipper of code, so "Ship it Steve" became something that Brian would say often and it's grown from there to become somewhat of a mantra.

The rocket has obvious launch connotations ("We Get Products Launched, Fast" being our tagline), but to get deeper on it, we like to think that it also speaks to the fact that we want those products – be they apps or websites – to really take off.

Our clients are driven to create self-sustaining, profitable businesses - which is a little old school in the tech world, where a lot of startups focus on getting lots of investment instead of creating a viable business.

The sign has become a great icebreaker, giving us the opportunity to explain to new and potential clients who we are and how we work as well as a daily reminder to us to focus on whatever it takes to push the product forward.

Thanks again to Vanessa for her wonderful work! Follow us on Instagram for more behind-the-scenes action at MiniCorp.

Photography by Nathalie Marquez Courtney. Timelapse by Ben Keenan.

Our front end developer intern Patrick O'Boyle shares his experience of learning to feel the shipping fear and commit anyway...

One of the more common things I hear from intern developers, and have experienced myself, is being afraid to push code.

There are a lot of reasons new developers are scared to share their code. Some haven’t deployed before, some don’t want to make a mistake around their new colleagues, and some feel like they don’t know enough. As a result, they question their code.

Most of the things I use day-to-day as a developer I've learned from jumping into a project and trying to do something new. Occasionally it works immediately, but usually, I'll make mistakes and have to fix them.

Why are new developers afraid of pushing code?

Some are worried of looking like they:

• don’t know what they’re doing
• are not solving the problem
• are not providing value to the team

A lot of these feelings can be summed up by Imposter Syndrome - where people aren’t able to accept their ability and are constantly afraid of being discovered as a “fraud”.

It’s easy to feel like this as a junior developer; you get things wrong, you don’t know as much as the more experienced developers, and the top developers you know often make you question your own ability.

I’ve worked in another company, have been doing freelance work for the last year, and I was still scared when pushing code during my first few days in MiniCorp. Luckily, we’ve got a great review process – someone looks over your work, then you ship it.

My advice to new developers

• Ask questions if you’re stuck. You’ll learn faster, waste less time, and ship more often.
• Don’t try to perfect something before being sure it’s going to work. It’s better to tinker, find out it doesn’t work, and move on than spend a lot of time making it seemingly perfect to find out it doesn’t work.
• If you’re jumping into a new project and aren’t sure how it’s setup/works, ask someone who worked on it, it can save a lot of puzzling down the road.
• Commit often, push your code, learn from your mistakes.

Don't be afraid to break things. Or be afraid and do it anyway. You’ll learn from your mistakes and become more comfortable as a developer the more you fix them. I break things daily; the key is to learn from it and use that going forward.

I've learned more about building software from breaking things than two years studying computer science.

The real value in breaking things is that you have to fix them. To do that, you need to understand:

• Why what you did was wrong
• What you need to do to make it work

If you apply those two things to every mistake, you'll quickly become a better developer.

Follow Patrick on Twitter and Instagram.

Interested in breaking (and fixing) stuff with us? We're hiring!

Are you prepared for what comes after the lightbulb moment? Our project manager Nathalie Marquez Courtney shares some insights.

One of the most fun and exciting things about working at MiniCorp is getting to meet entrepreneurs and discussing their ideas for their product. We’ve had a lot of those meetings in the past few weeks and months, and I’ve spotted some trends that can have a huge impact on how quickly those products get launched. If you are in the process of developing an app idea, here are some critical questions to ask yourself before a line of code is written.

How available are you – really?

Constant communication is oxygen for a successful new product. Our core ethos here at MiniCorp dictates that if a product is to become successful, it requires passion and dedication from both sides. It’s not simply a case of handing over your idea and walking away. We must operate as a close team – and this means you, as the chief visionary for your product, have to be readily available for meetings, discussions, decisions, and sign off. A lot of the startup founders that we are lucky to call clients are phenomenally busy; some are out there trying to get their product into the world, others still have full-time jobs, others are on and off planes several times a week, but the ones who get the needle moving are the ones who have decided to be core part of their own product team. If days go by without you responding to requests or making a key decision, momentum slowly begins to grind to a halt and your product suffers.

Do you understand the problem?

Finding a problem, validating it, seeing how the market is currently dealing with it and determining whether they are willing to pay for a solution is the building block of your product – and being able to clearly articulate this is equally valuable. Do you know your target audience? Can you define the current bad solutions? General Assembly penned a great post on how to write the best problem statement for your start-up which is essential reading during early stage development. But it isn’t just about perfecting your elevator pitch; it’s hugely valuable to your development team, and in those early meetings where you are defining how your product will work, look and feel.

Have you factored in planning time?

In the excitement and hunger to get going, it can be so tempting to push to dive in and start building, but that’s a mistake that can end up costing you untold amounts of time and money in revisions as your development team spend days, weeks or months redoing work. Clearly defining the problem (see above) and deciding – as a team – on precisely what is to be built is actually the trickiest part of the whole process. As the old saying goes, "if you don’t have time to do it right once, how will you find the time to do it twice?”
Our senior developer Steve recently shared this gem of a resource on the requirements gathering process, and I’ve been reading and re-reading it, looking for ways on how we can improve how we do things.

What can you learn?

Here at MiniCorp, we have worked with many talented entrepreneurs who weren’t tech-savvy programmers. One of the biggest pieces of advice I can offer them is to learn as much as possible about the software development process. What is a wireframe? What should you expect from a wireframe and what is certain not to be included? You don’t have to code to know why a certain feature functions in a certain way. The better equipped you are to make key decisions, the stronger your product will be.

Got questions about developing great web and mobile apps? Ask us on Twitter!

We hope you've been enjoying getting to know the MiniCorp team! This week, we introduce you to the Steve Thornton, our senior software engineer.

What I do at MiniCorp: Primarily I’m a software developer, working mostly with Ruby on Rails and iOS. I also work on our DevOps stuff with the goal of making developer life easier via continuous integration and testing.

In a previous life, I was... Certainly not a software developer! Probably something equally creative, I have always liked sketching (although out of practice these days) so maybe an artist. Either that or a caterpillar.

My essential work kit includes: My workspace if pretty basic. Just give me a comfortable chair (none of this standing desk nonsense) and a Macbook Pro and I’ll be grand.

The last app I opened was... Duolingo – my fifth trip to Brazil is coming up and my Portuguese is still pretty basic. I like to use Duolingo for around 15-30 minutes in the morning before I leave for work. It allows me to wake up fully and gets the brain going.

My favourite app is... Spotify, I use it every day, it drowns out the noise of the city during rush hour. I think it looks great and is simple to use both mobile and tablet versions. Especially useful is the offline functionality which I always use to save a few playlists before getting on a plane.

iOS or Android? iOS - my first smartphone was a white iPhone 3GS, I loved the curved back and it was nice and fast (at the time – it soon slowed down after a few iterations of iOS!). As soon as I got my first iPhone I started developing for it and have had iPhones ever since.

My favourite thing to do in Dublin is... Just wandering the city over the weekend with no real plan, stopping for a coffee, a beer or a bite to eat. It’s a great city when you are able to relax and just enjoy it as opposed to the hustle and bustle of midweek life.

Fun fact: I am the chief shipper of code in the office. The evidence being the huge mural on the wall. I was initially against using my name but it’s growing on me...

3 things I’m into right now: Sailing, home brewing and learning Portuguese.

Follow Steve on Twitter and Instagram and look out for his work in future MiniCorp projects.

MiniCorp CEO Brian Kenny shares his pick of the Snapchat litter...

Snapchat has become a major outlet for me to deliver as much free advice to my audience as possible. It offers a service where, like a regularly scheduled broadcast, I'm intimately connected with my viewer. No other network has provided this (though Instagram has started trying) and it's something everyone needs jump on board with.

I use Snapchat to connect my followers with the day to day grind at MiniCorp. It's not about holding back and only showcasing when we achieve something great. It's about showing potential entrepreneurs (our potential clients) the hard work, blood, sweat and tears that go into building a business from idea to something profitable.

The only thing not shown on my Snapchat account is anything protected by NDA or if our client doesn't feel comfortable with the information being spread in the public domain.

I also love to start daily or weekly segments. Every day, I run a Tip of the Day series on Snapchat, where I offer a piece of advice to any business owner or entrepreneur that I've learned the hard way to help them make better-educated decisions. I also recently created Trillionaire Tuesdays, where I shout out a quick business idea. I believe ideas are cheap and that execution is everything. Trillionaire Tuesdays allows me to offer some ideas for free in the hopes that my audience will execute on them but also realise that it's all about the effort you put into executing on an idea.

I love following other start-ups and entrepreneurs on their journey, so thought I would share some of my faves. In no particular order, here are my Top 5 Snapchatters to follow for their business hustle – and bonus, the majority are Irish.

Tracy Keogh (tkoegh)

Who: Programme manager at Bank of Ireland's Startlab Galway, an incubator developed to support scaling tech startups.
Why: Tracy is there for the entire journey, and through her Snapchat account, we can go along for the ride. From seeing early stage prototypes to hearing about start up events, success stories and great tips and insights from Tracy herself, this account is a must follow for any budding start up.

James Kavanagh (jamesksnaps)

Who: A former PR exec who is one of the most followed Irish people on Snapchat.
Why: He's the definition of excellent marketing and story-telling. This is one of the most overlooked factors in business and branding. You need to be able to tell an engaging story.

Gary Vaynerchuck (garyvee)

Who: Social media marketer, CEO, and YuouTube show host.
Why: Prescribes to the mentality of building a business to make money (profitability), over building a business to raise money, something I believe in deeply.

NudieFoods (nudiefoods)

Who: Dublin-based fresh fruit and veg delivery service.
Why: Hardcore hustle. Through Paul's Snapchats you get a fly on the wall perspective into how he has grown something from an idea into a real profitable company.

Mark Suster (msuster)

Who: American entrepreneur, angel investor, blogger, and mentor.
Why: Stellar business advice from an extremely seasoned entrepreneur and now a venture capitalist. Tells it as it is.

Liked what you read? Send me a snap!

Summers are for fun in the sun... and getting it done. We're delighted to have TCD student Patrick O'Boyle join us as a front end developer intern for the next couple of months.

Patrick grew up in Mayo, and after living by the coast all his life, he moved to Dublin two years ago to study Computer Science, where he spends lots of his time helping to run events and projects for the Computer Science society.

He lives near Christchurch and hobbies include playing Dota 2 reading, and designing/building things. "I've always got a notebook with me to draw out an idea," he says.

Ready to get to know him a little better? Here's our lightning round...

Super Speedy Q&A

Favourite book Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson – it's a great story, covering the early days of the tech industry, building amazing products, and a guy who was hugely influential on both.

Favourite websites The Verge, my go to for tech news and opinion pieces and Reddit, which combines all my interests (and funny gifs) into one stream.

Favourite app The native iOS Notes app – I basically plan my life between my folders, notes, and checkboxes. The sync between my phone and laptop is 👌. I also love Pocketcasts, It's been my favourite podcasts app for years from my Android days. Great design, easy to use, and syncs with its web client!

Favourite social networks Twitter - I catch up with what's happening in the world mostly through tweets and Reddit (there's always a great funny gif to start the day off with while drinking my coffee).

Favourite design resources Google Design and iOS Human Interface Guidelines and the Airbnbn Design blog.

Design pet peeve Non-responsive sites in $current_year

Daily breakfast Black coffee, cereal and a glass of water.

Favourite holiday: New Year! It's a great time to both reflect and look forward, and also an awesome time to celebrate 🎉

Dream holiday Inter-railing around Europe with friends. I'd love to see more of Europe with some mates, the current plan is to start off in England and end up in Croatia, somehow.

Fun fact I have a pet donkey 🐴 ! My grandad's best friend visited us when I started secondary school, but the catch was - he had a trailer with him. He had decided to give us a donkey (context: I grew up on a farm – did I mention I'm from Mayo?). So yeah we've had a pet donkey, Eduardo (his name is whole other story...), for many the year now.

Favourite thing to do in Dublin Spend an afternoon roaming & reading in Hodges Figgis

Favourite place to get coffee Caffé Noto, a great coffee shop at the top of Francis Street.

Favourite emoji 👌

Say hi to Patrick on Twitter or Instagram, and look out for his work in future MiniCorp projects!

Top portraits by Nathalie Marquez Courtney.