‘Meet the Team’ – Marc Butterly

Over the past 12 months EIT Health Ireland-UK has welcomed several new faces to the team. Our latest interview series ‘Meet the Team’ will introduce you to each member, spotlighting their area of focus across Business Creation, Collaboration, Education, Innovation, Marketing, and Communications. First up is Marc Butterly, Business Creation Lead. Marc joined EIT Health Ireland-UK in August 2020.

For over 20 years, Marc has held leadership and entrepreneurial roles across the health, events marketing, and software industries, founding events such as the Future Heath Summit and Enterprise Ireland’s Big Ideas showcase.

Over the course of his career to date, Marc has co-founded several well-known healthcare services and technology companies such as Investnet Healthcare, and Ranesys, which provides a bed management app to the Saolta Group,as well as digital media streaming service DV4, and IP licensing company Marketmaker Software.

In the late 1990’s Marc set up angel investor start-up forum First Tuesday in Ireland, and later went on to serve on the UK board following a buyout.

At EIT Health Marc is responsible for providing support to health innovation scale-ups and SMEs based in the Ireland-UK region, helping them identify opportunities for business growth, financing and strategic development through use of EIT Health programmes. A certified scrum master he also is the named inventor on several US patents in online sports gaming.

We talked to Marc about his journey as an entrepreneur to date:

How did you end up becoming an entrepreneur?

From the lessons I got from my dad, in the car, on the way to school every day. A desire to be financially independent and from an unhealthy interest in autonomy!

Of each of the businesses you have founded, which had the most lessons learned?

I think a gambling start-up I had that didn’t work out.
The lesson was, it’s not enough to have strong IP, a great idea and good people, if you don’t have the capital to fund customer signups, which are unsustainable at your size. It meant for us that market would only have 1 winner and it wasn’t ever going to be a startup or necessarily those that do raise money and slog it out.

What key piece of advice would you give other entrepreneurs starting out that you wish you had received?

Never forget to mind your own career and family. Be aware of all opportunity cost, life is short.

Pick the people you work with wisely and don’t be afraid to trust them.

When it comes time to exit you will know in your gut, at that time. In years to come, don’t underestimate the impact that may have; so take time for yourself whether selling or shutting up shop. 

What supports would you recommend?

We have some great scale up and start-up programmes on offer at EIT Health. Currently hot for scaleups are our collaborations with the European Innovation Council accelerator, and the European Investment Fund in our Venture Centre of Excellence for companies looking to raise in excess of €6 million.

What would you say are the top qualities of a successful entrepreneur?

Resilience and hunger.

Why did you decide to join EIT Health Ireland-UK as Business Creation Lead?

I was excited to work with entrepreneurs again, and be part of the EIT journey to become a self-sustainable not for profit organisation. 

From your time at EIT Health so far, what types of innovations have you seen that are here to stay and scale?

From what I have seen to date, you’re on the right track if you are trying to:  

Bring care closer to home 

Harness hospital and real-world data

Deliver a more patient-centred model of care

Marc will join a panel at tomorrow’s 18^th National Health Summit. virtual event, with other industry experts to discuss “Innovation in healthcare: Transformative trends to advance patient care.” To learn more about what key trends are on the horizon for patient-centred healthcare, join the event by registering your place here.