Dulann is an innovative online e-learning company based in Wexford Town run by business partners and entrepreneurs, Damian Donlon (pictured in the middle) and Matthias Kausch (left). Launched in 2013, their initial product set out to disrupt the food safety market, by reducing costs and improving efficiencies for the SME sector in Ireland. Here, CEO Damian Donlon talks about their unique approach and their plans to rapidly scale the business over the next few years.
“We started off in the lobby of the Talbot Hotel in Wexford, and for the first six months, we held our meetings there.”
How we started
We started off in the lobby of the Talbot Hotel in Wexford, and for the first six months, we actually held our meetings there. Matthias’s background is in learning and development. He is also a published author within food safety which became our first e-learning course and cost in the region of €100,000 to produce. Previously I had spent ten years in construction, and although that industry was hugely satisfying, you were mostly involved in building and selling a once-off product, before quickly moving onto the next project. With the arrival of the recession, what really attracted me to e-learning was the concept that you could build a product once – and still having the opportunity to sell it many times over.
“There are 13m people in Europe operating under one piece of mandatory food safety legislation.”
We had enough insight from our market research that there was a real need out there and with the right product, we felt that we could satisfy that need. A key factor was realising that there were 13m people in Europe operating under one piece of mandatory food safety legislation which was a real indication of the potential size of the market. For us, it was about using
