Wyldsson founder Dave McGeady [pictured] built his 2013 business up one healthy snack at a time, eschewing a formal launch and letting word of mouth do most of the work for him. The business pitches itself as ‘elite nutrition’, selling trail mixes, muesli, nut butters and porridge toppers through its online store.

McGeady (35) previously worked in investment banking in London, before heading further afield for postgraduate studies. “I had been working with a medtech startup in Dublin before Wyldsson. I lost my job and then decided that this was the perfect time to start a business,” he explains.

McGeady used his redundancy money to fund Wyldsson at the outset.

“I opened a web store in 2013. It was very basic – I made it myself and it had only one product. We now sell ten trail mixes, four nut butters, two mueslis, two porridge toppings and two salad sprinkles, as well as other products like porridge oats and almond flour. We make the products ourselves in Tallaght.”

Online Focus

In Association with

Wyldsson products range in price from €8 to €40, and everything is sold online. McGeady argues that e-commerce beats traditional outlets if you want to sell fast, direct and get the best return.

“Online is our 100% focus. We’ve been approached by Supervalu, Holland & Barrett and Topaz about going into retail but we’ve turned them down. We can provide customers with far better value by cutting out the middleman and selling to them directly. It’s the future – more and more people are buying online.”

Financially, Wyldsson is still finding its feet. The company booked a profit of €17,000 in 2014 to bring retained losses back to just under €10,000.

“We have solid cashflow and we secured a bank loan a few months back,” McGeady explained. “We’ve been approached by investors but fundraising is a huge distraction. We just wanted to keep our focus on developing our products and webstore. We’re getting closer now to where we want to be, so we will more than likely take on funding in 2016.”

The entrepreneur adds that scaling up and coping with spikes in demand puts a strain on cashflow. “We have now built up some additional inventory to pad out the spikes somewhat. It costs money to have finished stock sitting there, but at least we can keep shipping when extra orders come in.”

Wyldsson employs six people, including Daragh Whelan, who joined in 2014. Whelan, who invested around €20,000 in the firm, has experience in sales roles with a number of startups, and McGeady recommends not going it alone in business. "Try to find someone to team up with, with similar ambition but complementary skills. It’s much harder to do it all yourself, and it’s a lot less fun.”

New Webstore

Wyldsson recently upgraded its webstore which McGeady says is better equipped to deal with spikes in traffic. The site now has a subscription option, enabling customers to choose to receive products every month or six weeks.

According to McGeady: “It’s something that customers had been asking for. But we wanted to make sure that it was done right. Our system gives the customer total flexibility to change their subscription package whenever they like. It was technically very complex but the end result is a great experience for the customer.”

For 2016, Wyldsson is planning to maximise its market reach. “FC Barcelona’s nutritionist recently asked us for some samples, so we may have Lionel Messi as a customer in the future! We’re also looking towards the UK market. We sell online so there’s no barriers to entry, and with our new webstore up and running we’re ready to take this opportunity.

“We took part in the AIB Start-up Academy in 2015 and also received grants from Bord Bia, our Local Enterprise Office as well as Enterprise Ireland. That sort of backing can make a huge difference to a company and I’d advise anyone starting out to tap into that support where available.”