Topper Coding's goal is to help the next generation of Irish SaaS companies thive and scale.
Our founder Peter Coppinger started a web agency straight out of college in 1999 with friends. In his own words:
“We made every mistake in the book but eventually learned how to run a thriving agency. We built large applications for companies like Pfizer which gave us the confidence that we could build products as good or better than anybody in the world. We always wanted to develop a product and one day we came up with the idea for Teamwork - software to help run our agency. We built a MVP, got some initial customers and then looked for support. Cork LEO told us our idea wouldn’t work and they wouldn’t support us. We also found the red tape for Enterprise Ireland support too time consuming and confusing so we ignored it. In the end we got zero support and the negative feedback was the opposite of what we needed.”
“Today, we’re doing well and we’re bringing real jobs and wealth to Ireland. We’d love to see hundreds of more companies like us taking off in Ireland. A few years ago I sat myself down and thought about how I can contribute to society in a meaningful way that I’ll be proud to look back on when I’m 70. What can I really affect? The answer I came up with is that I want to try to make Ireland more Sassy. I want us to have more SaaS companies founded, expanding and thriving in Ireland. I want us to attract more entrepreneurs to start their innovation-led companies here. So I did some thinking and research which is summarized here.”
Our national strategy for the last 70 years can be summed up as low taxes and FDI. It has worked great. However, strategies have to evolve. There was a good article in the Irish Times recently “Will Ireland’s long winning streak on tax soon come to an end?”. It stated “Every few months a gun is pointed at our 12.5 per cent corporation tax rate or we’re blasted as a tax haven, a sop to big business.”. I feel it’s a matter of when, not if, our tax rate will increase and that this may put our FDI strategy at risk over a 30-50 year horizon. We also have a lot more competition for FDI than we used to.
Here are some additional facts as we see it:
We are an island nation. Shipping physical goods and supplies to and from Ireland is more difficult and expensive than every other country in Europe.
We are english speakers who are perfectly situated between North America and Europe.
We are smart, hard working and likable.
SaaS is eating the world
Given the facts above, we believe Ireland Inc should concentrate our strategy on intangible goods and SaaS in particular. At Topper Coding we're playing our part to help Irelands SaaS economy thrive.
We would love to hear from Irish SaaS entrepreneurs who have global ambition.
Topper Coding's goal is to help the next generation of Irish SaaS companies thive and scale.
Seed stage
Series A
Pragmatic advice
Founder focused
Experienced
Down to earth
