Finglas fingers are on the PULSE

FINGLAS entrepreneur, Barry Lawlor, describes himself as a regular guy with no third level education, but that hasn’t stopped him setting up an app that Enterprise Ireland says could disrupt the social media market.

Barry’s creation PULSE (People Using Local Stories Everywhere) is a new social network designed to allow people to share local, regional and national stories.

He set up the company after seeing a gap in the market for community based news. The Finglas local describes it as a platform for “giving a voice to the ordinary person without the need for ‘friends’”.

PULSE is designed to be a grass roots movement, where local people will create the news. Barry describes how he isn’t building a network like Facebook does with ‘friends’ or Twitter with ‘followers’ but users will be able to vote stories up or down.

“I’m from Finglas, I left school after Leaving Cert and began working in retail,” Barry tells us.

Determined and innovative, Barry didn’t let his lack of college education stop him.

“I’m entrepreneurial – I barged my way in,” he laughs.

Barry built his contacts in an interesting way, by deciding to apply for jobs on DCU campus and reaching out to people in the DCU Invent and Insight Centre. And it worked!

He was eventually introduced to researcher, Prof Noel O’Connor, who helped mentor him and “put me on the right track for what I need to do”. 

A big boost to PULSE was getting the support of Independent Senator and former Superquinn boss, Feargal Quinn. Barry persevered even when told Quinn wouldn’t be investing in any more start-ups.

Two weeks after meeting with the Senator’s team, Barry got the good news that PULSE was going to be invested in after all.

But it wasn’t just Quinn’s financial investment that made the difference to PULSE.

“It was him coming on board. It opened up other doors” explains Barry.

The PULSE team also includes co-founder Robbie Carey. Barry describes Robbie as someone who knows how to work creatively and interact with people.

Eamonn Moloney is the PULSE programmer, the technical brains behind the operation.

The PULSE crew decided to launch the service to the public via a website just over a month ago. They build it around one community, Finglas, to see how people used it.

“It exploded when we opened it” Barry explained. “It was getting picked up in other communities like Blanchardstown and Santry.”

Barry put the boost in interest down to Twitter, with people like Eamon Quinn and Gavin Duffy tweeting about it. The PULSE app should appear in app stores by June. 

Aside from connecting people to local news, Barry wants to set himself as an example as someone who made something from nothing.

“It wasn’t easy but it shows it can be done,” Barry insists.

“If I can do this, I want it to inspire the person who has no job. I didn’t have money or great contacts but I built it up.”

You can visit the PULSE website and sign up for the service at http://pulse.vision.

Róisín Nestor