back in 1987 or 1988 i was in glasnevin in a shop unit having started my first business with my
brother in december of 1986. we had a convenience store there in hart's corner at last never i've
made videos about this before i've spoken about it before about starting off and small business
i was only 23 the brother was about 26 but it worked out well it went well we did
we met a few bob even though we were starting in the very very worst of times the recession in 19
in the mid to late 80s was absolutely appalling indeed the early 80s that's not the purpose of
this video in this video i want to tell you about crossing the city and meeting michael o'leary
who later became the michael O' leary that we all know and associate with ryanair
a friend of mine in ucd i won't name him because i'll save him the embarrassment he
came back from being abroad and he called to me one saturday morning uh or not one saturday
morning called to me some stage in 87 or 88. and he said there was a lad for mullingar over
in walkinstown in the same line of business as me in other words he was in a convenience store
and he suggested that i go across and have a chat with him so one saturday morning in 1987
or 88 not sure which year but i know it was in 89 because i think i was gone in 89 i was moved on
so it was 87 or 88 i got into mccarran traveled across the city to speak to this fella from
mullingar and it turned out that we had quite a bit in common firstly i did a bcom a bachelor of
commerce degree in ucd and this fella did a bachelor of business studies in trinity
so we both studied business we had both decided that we didn't want to do accountancy or become
trainee or apprentice accountants or whatever and we were obviously making the best of our way
as small business persons or entrepreneurs or call it what you like hustlers and strokers
quite frankly um so we got to chatting anyway outside at the walkinstown roundabout he had
a shop unit there in fact i think he had two shop units because i think he bought one next
door to the other when it came up for sale or whatever in an opportunistic sort of a fashion
but this was o'leary and i had gone to school in mullingar in St. Finian's college, O'leary was
from mullingar and had gone to school in Clongowes Wood and Clongowes is near where i live so we
had this sort of and we bought as i said commerce or business studies at third level in university
and we both decided that we didn't want to become accountants basically we didn't want to be score
keepers we wanted to be players and that was our attitude so that morning i spoke to o'leary
discovered he had a leasehold unit and he was complaining about the difficulty of running a
small business and complaining about staff and complaining about customers ripping them
off and robbing stuff in the shop which are all things that go with the territory quite frankly
but that saturday morning i drove back across the city from rockingstown to atlanta
and i was really chuffed with myself because i had a freehold unit and it was going well uh
he had leasehold he had to pay rent i was much happier it appeared to me anyway than he was
in the particular industry in the particular business that we were in but shortly afterwards
or so many years afterwards rather i discovered that o'leary had packed in and done the very
thing that we both agreed we wouldn't do he went back in to become an accountant at one of the top
accountancy firms it could have been cooper's in libra and it could have been craig gardner i can't
remember which but he was a top firm o'leary then became personal assistant to tony ryan
and tony ryan was the founder of reindeer one of the first jobs ryan asked earlier to do was to go
to dublin airport carry out a review of rainier o'leary went out and he carried out the review
and recommended to tony ryan to close it up it would put him and his family on the road
but tony ryan didn't accept the advice didn't act on it not too long afterwards the seamless brennan
the minister for transport in the final fall government in an effort to ensure and encourage
the competition in the marketplace in terms of in the airline industry and in order probably
to keep the unions in air lincus in check they were anxious finna follower and the government
was to keep ryanair uh on the go because obviously competing without competition
any market is going to be in difficulty and it's obviously from a strategic point of view
a good idea to have a healthy airline industry in ireland given that we're a
small open economy and we're basically an island so seamus brennan took one of the landing slots
i think delay lingers had at the time in either gatwick or stansted and gave it to ryan here just
to ensure that ryanair kept going ryanair did keep going but tony ryan then sent oliri out to
a guy called herb kelleher in southwest airlines in texas to copy or ape the strategy employed by
southwest airlines he did that and he did it very successfully and he brought that strategy back
from southwest airlines herb kelleher to ireland i think herb keller was his name anyway i think
he had irish anti-seasons came back to ireland implemented in ryanair and the rest is history
rainier has been a remarkable success but it always struck me across my mind that had
o'leary been successful in the convenience store game had he even successful as a small shopkeeper
then it struck me that maybe today he'd be the owner of three or four or five supervalus or
Centras or spars in the greater dublin area or indeed in denser wherever whereas
the irony was that the very thing that we bought decided we wouldn't do o'leary ended up doing
and run with the ball that he was given tony ryan ignored him but as the rest is history ryan had
the vision and o'leary implemented the plan but the plan was southwest airlines herb kelleher's uh
plan for the low-cost flying or flights airline flights airline ticket model so as i say it's
always struck me that maybe if he had been more successful in doing what he was doing that um
he'd be running three or four or have three or four super values may be in dublin at the moment
and but i'm sure he's much much happier doing what he's doing i'm sure he's he's certainly
wealthier anyway that's for sure i mean he's probably a billionaire and nor looked to him he
did remarkably well he implemented the strategy he took advice or took direction from tony ryan
he took the breaks that occurred and cropped up and he dealt the cards that he was given
very very well but just goes to show you that success sometimes can come down to many factors
and it's not entirely predictable sometimes it can be look sometimes it can be serendipity sometimes
it can be a good break a good opportunity sometimes it can be genius sometimes it can
be just sheer hard graft i don't think there's any hard and fast formula but i do think you need
a certain element of all of those factors and i do believe that you need the right attitude though on
the right work ethic in order to implement whatever it is you're going to implement
anyway i hope you find this video interesting and perhaps even thought provoking thought provoking
insofar as maybe it will give you some food for taught and maybe starting your own business or
if you're struggling with your own business what can happen if you take a different direction what
can happen if you fold the tent and maybe another opportunity might arise and maybe that'll turn out
even better if you can implement some successful strategy but it just goes to show you success
is an elusive sort of a lady and uh sometimes you just gotta dance with the girl that you bring and
uh you gotta make the best of your opportunities as i say hope you find the video useful i hope you
find it talk provoking and perhaps you might learn something from it as i say i'm still scratching my
head because i can remember well driving back across the city from walking stone to glass
evan congratulating myself about how well i was doing vis-a-vis o'leary uh and yet he's ended
up far wealthier than me but whether he's happier than me or not i don't know and i didn't sell out