'I had a solid business but the recession nearly killed me – it was a real lesson in humility'

I THINK I’VE had entrepreneur’s disease from an early age.

I was 12 years old and still at school when I got my first product order from a supermarket chain, making Christmas decorations for Quinnsworth.

I’d make them from my parents’ garage. They would have been retailing at £5, but I was selling them to the supermarket for £2.

After secondary school I went into the glassware industry without any third-level education. It was just meant to be a summer job, but the exam results weren’t that good in the end so I stayed.

I was in that for 10 years to the day before I quit to start up on my own a short 38 years ago. The salary wasn’t bad in the industry, so it gave me a chance to save up funds to set up my own business – Irish Table Top Group, which has since been rebranded to Artists at Irish Table Top.

I started up on my own at Marlay Park doing craft-type items for retail, which eventually progressed into something more sophisticated.

Eamonn Cunningham

Highs and lows

There have been many highs across my career that I look back fondly over.

I exported more than a $1 million worth of products to the US in 2002 and did some work with the famous department store Saks Fifth Avenue. My total turnover that year was around £2.8 million.

People might ask where I got my connections in the US, and Enterprise Ireland deserve a mention for their help, but it’s really all down to delivering on what I promised. My background is in industry, so I know that the first time you don’t deliver you might not get a call back for another job.

In 1996 I was given the DHL exporter of the year award, while in 1985 during the Live Aid transmission I donated commemorative pieces to RTÉ and the phone exchange couldn’t handle the volume of calls coming in.

I had a solid business, but the recession nearly killed me – it was a real lesson in humility. Basically I was in giftware, which is a luxury option and it’s the first to go in a recession.

People have to buy gifts. Even if there is a war on, you’re still going to have anniversaries and birthdays and so on, but the average spend goes down enormously.

It hit the big companies in my field as well, there was no mercy. Like me, they didn’t have a strategy either, so we all did as badly as each other. Some shut up shop, but I didn’t close down. I feel like I’m somewhat of a survivor.

Mistakes

I was always open to someone making an offer for my company. It’s not an ego trip for me, and I would be delighted to pass it on if someone else feels like they can do a better job.

I would happily sit back and learn from them, and I know there are plenty of people out there a lot smarter than me.

When I started doing my social media training a few years ago, it was a real eye opener into the new way people are communicating, and the fact if you didn’t have a good website or social media presence you may never be heard of again.

A lot of my competitors didn’t pay attention to the changing trends. As a supplier to retail, you always have to remind yourself to listen to the customer because not paying attention is lethal.

Focusing in on that relentlessly is the key to success, from my experience, but do we forget that from time to time? Of course we do – we all make mistakes.

It’s especially true in the creative space, where we go off on tangents and think blue is the new black.

So I was just as guilty as others and in my own way I was stuck in a rut and burned out during the middle of the recession. I decided I had nothing else to offer on the design front – up until then I had been designing all my own stuff.

Learning curve

I was feeling like this about six years ago. I was 62 and decided I was BOBO (burnt out but operational) in terms of design.

I had started working with the National Gallery doing limited-edition plates with reproductions of their images, but it didn’t work out.

Even though it wasn’t a great commercial success, it was a learning curve for me. It taught me people do like art, but only if it’s something of functional use.

So I got the idea of doing tableware, linens, glassware and wooden home accessories with art images on them. However, in the gallery it was very difficult to satisfy the needs of the various committees in terms of the finished product.

For instance, they mightn’t be happy with a particular shade of blue that wasn’t the same as the artist used in their work. I was of the mind that the artists, who had probably passed away since, wouldn’t be knocking down my door to complain.

So it was around that time I met Deborah Donnelly, a prolific Irish impressionist, through my sister. I thought her images and work were very commercial, so basically I decided to work with a living artist instead of dead ones.

Deborah had an aspiration to go into hard goods and three-dimensional work so our business partnership went from there. It has been a good match so far in that I have some commercial experience and she has a lot of artistic talent.

Deborah Donnelly

Next up

Would I have done anything different during my career? I don’t know. I’m very lucky to be doing what I like, so I can’t really say I have any regrets.

I won’t say I enjoyed the down times as much as when times were good for business – nobody can say that.

I think it’s my passion that drives me. When I started working with Deborah and saw her art at 62, I felt like bouncing out of bed at six o’clock in the morning again. I couldn’t wait to get going and that has not gone away since.

I feel like it has taken years for business to rebound after the recession. It’s only since the end of 2015 or beginning of 2016 that I have seen a pick up.

I still have historical debt and am suffering a hangover from that time, but because I like what I’m doing, it makes it easier to bounce back.

We have around 30 items in our range now, which is predominantly tableware and home accessories, but we are eyeing other products to do and I see us having a good export strategy by the end of this year.

We are moving into more fashion items, accessories like cashmere scarves and bags – all the fashion items that there is a demand for.

All through my entrepreneurial career, my wife Patricia has been my rock and the foundation of the business. She has looked after the accounts side of the business and my mental health .

But Deborah has brought a whole lease of life back into the business. It is benefiting from the energy of this girl and it’s wonderful. And she has enough material to keep me busy for the rest of my life.

Eamonn Cunningham is the owner of Artists at Irish Table Top. This article was written in conversation with Killian Woods as part of a series on business mistakes and what can be learned from them.

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