Podcast Ep 214: Hrvoje Smolic and Vinnie Lynch, the founders of Kerry-based tech firm Graphite-Note, talk about the chemistry that made them realise they could build a global AI-based business from regional Ireland.
When Smolic and Lynch first met at the RDI Hub in Killorglan, Co Kerry, the former was an entrepreneur taking part in an NDRC pre-accelerator programme and the latter was his sales mentor.
“I had moved to Kerry six years ago because it’s beautiful,” Smolic recalled. “You can do innovation and do noble work from every corner of the world today. I chose lucky because the RDI Hub had just opened – it gave me perfect internet connectivity, a good business environment and peers to talk to. If you are in a beautiful spot you are just more inspired.
“If I wasn’t in Kerry and in the NDRC pre-accelerator we wouldn’t have met. The universe provided and when I needed Vinnie – he showed up”
Founded in 2020 by Smolic, CEO, and Lynch, CRO, Graphite-Note is a no-code machine learning platform that gives businesses around the globe access to actionable insights via unique analytics.
Having bootstrapped to have a presence across five continents, Graphite Note is the European leader in the space, with clients including Fexco (PACE), Katana, and Escape Agency. Its subscription-based SaaS model allows business intelligence and data analytics teams to access predictive and prescriptive analytics in minutes, rather than months, helping customers strengthen their operational efficiency, fuel their growth and achieve their business goals.
In recent months the company closed a seed investment round of €1.2m and plans to create 25 local jobs over the next two years, in roles including operations, sales, marketing and technology.
“If I wasn’t in Kerry and in the NDRC pre-accelerator we wouldn’t have met. The universe provided and when I needed Vinnie – he showed up.”
It was a fortuitous meeting of minds and a business with global potential was born.
Rise of the regions
Smolic says that the NDRC pre-accelerator that joins together start-ups from Dogpatch Labs in Dublin, the RDI Hub in Kerry, Republic of Work in Cork and Portershed in Galway is something of a godsend for early-stage entrepreneurs.
“They facilitate and bring a bit of organisation to nationwide entrepreneurship. Anyone who’s experienced doing a start-up knows it’s a lonely place and it’s a rollercoaster … a day can seem like a month and you’re up one day and down the next. Having that support network around you is really, really important – more than people realise.”
He said the moment he and Lynch met there was a chemistry. “I have a sixth sense sometimes and then I pursue the idea. I knew that prior to meeting with Vinnie I couldn’t do everything myself, I needed a mature, knowledgeable sales co-founder to build a business and when I met him there was an alignment that was very appealing. I am a data scientist but when he explained the sales process and how it should be he was very scientific because it’s a science. We talked about some of the use cases that Graphite-Note can bring to people and how to predict which sales are going to convert in to customers, we were like ‘wow, these are great use cases.’ And that’s how it started, how we could take use cases from my world, turn them into sales leads and into the sales retention world. That’s how we started talking and very quickly just decided, yeah, that’s it. We had a beautiful dinner in Killarney and shook hands.”
Lynch agrees: “Our mindsets were very similar. The other thing was, this isn’t our first rodeo. We’ve had very mixed experiences in the entrepreneurship world. And you know, nine out of 10 start-ups fail and that is for a reason because it is really, really hard.
“I’ve accumulated experience, knowledge and I know what good looks like and you try to create that environment. We were both of a similar mindset. Neither of us believed in luck, although you do need a little bit of luck, but you create your own luck in a scientific way. There’s no point sitting there waiting for the phone to ring with inbound sales, you have to go and create that outbound motion in some shape or form to drive inbound.”
Smolic adds that start-up life is harder than people realise. “There were a few times when I was down Vinnie was there to pick me up, and vice-versa.”
Decision science
Graphite-Note is on a mission to tackle the issues facing businesses in relation to data science, bridging the gap between expertise and access via an inclusive platform that harnesses sophisticated technology with an easy-to-use front-end.
“The way to look at it is supposing you are driving your car and you look in the rearview mirror and you can see what’s behind you,” Lynch explains. “That’s the world that most businesses are in today. They analyse data based on what’s happened in the past. With machine-learning you are able to use the algorithms to pick up data points and pattersn that would never be visible to those rearview mirror type solutions. In doing so you are able to train a model as to what good looks like.
“So, if you have 5,000 customers and you’re a services business you can look at your database every day, map it to a model based on what good and bad looks like and it will tell you which customers are in danger of leaving you. So it will predict or give you a preview of what’s going to happen ahead of it happen.
“As a business you can narrow that down to addressing the good things and bad things, making good things better and defend against the bad things. And that’s gold. So when people talk about data being the new oil, for me data is the oil that drives the machine that helps you spot what’s going to happen so you can prepare in advance. Some people call that decision science.”
Lynch said that by making this capability available via software as a service (Saas) via a monthly subscription, it puts the customer in control. He said the technology is particularly applicable in a world where businesses are heavily focused on recurring revenue models. “That really helps us to focus on making sure they will renew in a months’ time. It’s a healthy paranoia about learning from the interaction to help you win and retain more business in the future.”
The recent €1.2m investment in Graphite-Note was led by Gerry Devitt, CEO of Harvest Financial, along with angel investors and Enterprise Ireland.
Lynch said that it is no longer the case that start-ups in regional Ireland are precluded from venture investment. “There is a really healthy Halo Business Angel Network and many of the larger venture capital firms visit the RDI Hub to do pitches.
“Also, when you are an Enterprise Ireland high potential start-up (HPSU) you get access to the 50 international offices and the people in those offices are quite dynamic. We were in Austin, Texas, last month at a trade show and Enterprise Ireland facilitated meetings with some really large, heavy-hitting prospects.”
In terms of the 25 new jobs that the business is generating, Smolic said that while remote working is paramount, ideally staff will be located close enough to meet occasionally to collaborate and share ideas.
“Because the product if pretty mature, the majority of hires will be in sales, marketing and operations to support the company in the next stage.”
Smolic concluded that AI, and machine learning in particular, has gone from a novel technology to a must-have technology for businesses. “This is about execution. We’ve gone from kicking tyres to now businesses are deciding on a plan to leverage AI to benefit their business.
“It’s not because they should but because they need to as their competitors are doing it. So you have to get on that train. As Bill McDermott from ServiceNow said: ‘The train has left the station.’ This is the exciting part; you never want to be creating a market. But when you’re involved in a market that is this fast-moving and exciting, you want to try and capitalise on that.”
Main image at top: Graphite-Note founders Hrvoje Smolic and Vinnie Lynch
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