This semester GROWTHhub café has been a great host to many great entrepreneurs. GROWTHhub café is a student run and student led enterprise, enabling students to gain valuable entrepreneurial experience. This gives students the opportunity to run their own campus business. The GROWTHhub café also hosts a variety of entrepreneurial guest speakers as part of their lunch time seminar. 

As part of the first lunch time seminar on the 4th of October, we were delighted to have Gina Ryan, the microgreen queen! Gina joined and by firstly giving us an introduction to her life, with having over 10 years in retail management and after struggling with her health in 2013, this then forced her to explore other avenues, which lead her to the start of her entrepreneurial journey. Gina has now spent over 8 years as an entrepreneur after setting up her networking marketing business and successfully replaced and exceeded her career income. Gina has since expanded her businesses with her most recent business venture being the microgreen queen. Gina shared how she juggles her business with her family life and shared the benefits of being your own boss. Gina’s journey was truly inspirational.  

Our second guest speaker Gary Walsh also joined us in the GROWTHhub café on Monday 23rd of October. Gary is a former graduate of SETU, completing a B/A in Recreation and Leisure in 2010. Gary spoke to us about his college life to his journey to becoming an entrepreneur when he decided to open Waterford Warriors in 2013. Gary described the ups and downs of running a business and how covid impacted his business and many more around the county and how he overcame these issues as an entrepreneur. Gary didn’t leave Covid to stop him from expanding his businesses, when in 2021 he opened studio One and in 2022 Gary also joined the ‘Two brain business’. Gary is one of five mentors in Europe that helps gym owners achieve profitability, sustainability and wealth for gym owners. Gary’s talk really resonated with our students because Gary’s journey started from where they are now, and it really showed them that anything is possible!