Dublin and San Francisco-based Dataships helps companies to automate their privacy compliance while building healthy, transparent relationships with their customers.
“Dataships helps business comply with global data privacy laws such as General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA),” explained Fawad Bari, head of Growth at Dataships. “The data privacy market is estimated to reach $120bn by 2022.
“We believe compliance doesn’t have to be costly or complicated. We help companies automate their privacy compliance while building. healthy, transparent data relationships with their customers, or as we call them, Dataships.”
“Showing customers you respect their data builds trust and establishes your brand as a company users want to interact with”
According to Barai, Dataships is on a mission to demystify data privacy compliance.
“Our goal is to demonstrate how straight forward compliance can be and show companies the benefits of implementing a best-in-class privacy centre. The primary reason? Your users will love it.
“Showing customers you respect their data builds trust and establishes your brand as a company users want to interact with.
“We help companies create ‘privacy centres’ with all they need to comply with data privacy laws. We also give companies additional tools to help them build healthy data relationships with their users.”
Automating compliance
Dataships co-founder Ryan McErlane
Dataships was founded by Michael Storan and Ryan McErlane.
Storan studied regulation at the London School of Economics and went on to found an online gambling company in 2015. In 2017 he sold that business to Sky and having experienced the compliance problem first-hand, dedicated himself to helping other business owners minimise and automate their compliance obligations.
McErlane has spent a decade working with EY and Accenture on enterprise compliance programs. Having experienced the manual and repetitive fashion of these engagements, he is passionate about simplifying the process and introducing clarity and automation.”
“We are located in both Dublin and San Francisco so are able to benefit from the ecosystems of both,” said Bari. W
“We have found there is great comradery in Ireland between the different start-ups and Enterprise Ireland has been very supportive both in funding and in helping open doors for us in the US.
“We are just closing a pre-seed round in Ireland and we plan to raise a seed round between Ireland and the US early next year,” Bari added.
Focus on your vision and roll up your sleeves
When it comes to the lessons of start-up life, Bari explained that the biggest challenge is remaining focused and staying true to the original vision.
“As a start-up it’s hard to focus on one thing with different investors and clients constantly pulling you in different directions. Our biggest learning is to have a clear vision of the product we want to build and stick to that vision without letting outsiders influence it too much.”
The key to success is hard work. “A lot of the advice is already out there and there’s really no silver bullet to quick overnight success. Reading how companies have done things before you is definitely useful but there is no substitute to rolling up your sleeves and getting stuck in with a client’s problems. “
To stay agile, everything is build and managed online. “There are a host of tools out there now that make it easier for entrepreneurs to launch quicker and test hypothesis. This year we moved to Webflow which has been great in allowing non – technical members of the team update and manage the website. It’s important to spend time on this and get it right as it’s the shop window to the business,” Bari concluded.
By John Kennedy (john.kennedy3@boi.com)
Published: 12 October, 2020
