Starting a Business: What the First Year Actually Looks Like
- Focused on practical entrepreneurship — real decisions, not theory
- Live format with direct access to the presenter and Q&A time
- Accessible from anywhere — no travel required
What the session covers
Session outline
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Registration and introductions 9:00 am
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What a business model actually is and how to sketch one for your idea 9:20 am
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Pricing: how most first-time founders get it wrong and what to do instead 10:10 am
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Break 10:50 am
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Legal basics: sole trader vs limited company, when it matters 11:10 am
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Testing demand without spending money you do not have yet 11:45 am
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Open discussion and questions 12:20 pm
The session does not follow a fixed script. If the group has specific questions that shift the direction, that is fine. The outline above is a guide, not a schedule carved in stone.
Orla Finnegan, session lead
About this webinar
Most people who want to start a business have already read the inspirational posts. This event is not that. It is a half-day session focused on what the early stage of building a business actually involves: paperwork, cash flow gaps, pricing decisions, and the moments where things do not go as planned.
The session is led by Orla Finnegan, who ran a small product business for six years before selling it. She talks plainly about what she got wrong in year one, what she wishes she had understood about margins, and how she managed customer relationships when the business was still fragile.
Attendees will leave with a clearer picture of what a viable business model looks like at a small scale, how to test whether an idea has real demand before investing heavily in it, and what legal and financial structures are worth setting up early.
Who attends this session
People at different starting points come to this event. Some have a specific product or service in mind. Others are still deciding between two or three directions. A few have already started and hit a wall they cannot see past. The session is structured to be useful across all three situations.
Numbers are kept small deliberately. There are no more than 24 participants, which means there is time for actual questions rather than just a Q&A queue at the end.