Sonru.com

What a difference a week makes, since this time last week we've been awarded 2 major accolades, on Wednesday 3rd March we won the Bank of Ireland 100k Bright Ideas Grand Final in Dublin and then on Monday the 8th, Fergal brought home the first prize in the Innovate!2010 Dublin Pitch Slamhosted by Microsoft BizSpark and Enterprise Ireland. See Fergal in action here.

Yes so on Wednesday night we won the 100k interest free loan and mentoring from Dragon Den's Sean Gallagher via the Bank of Ireland Bright Ideas Challenge Grand Final in Dublin. You can read our press release for the full blurb and quotes. It was the end of a long day in fact the culmination of two years of hard slog: innovation, product development, launch and expansion and it's just so nice to get a thumbs up. Ed, our founder, called me early the next morning and during the course of the conversation I mentioned again how good it was to win the Challenge and Ed replied 'look I'm over it now, it's back to business.' I know winning awards is not the end game, it's all about business - sales, international expansion, global domination if you like. So fair play to you Ed for not losing the head or as we say in Wexford 'nothing phases him.'

Then on Monday night watching the oscars with Tweetdeck chirping in the background I pick up some congrats about us winning the Innovate!2010 Dublin Pitch Slam which now guarantees us a listing on the top 100 start-ups in the world in 2010, I reckon that's pretty big news and it is, press release for blurb and quotes here. Click here for more information on the competition.

So today in the office all working away, the story broke with literally hundreds of wires, releases, tweets and emails from all over the world. I told Ed that I'd come across alerts in French and Spanish and he seemed happy enough but when I told him that Innovate100's PR company in San Francisco were co-operating with the media distribution, he allowed himself to enjoy the moment and say 'that's cool, now that's global' and we were back to business again. Talking at the coffee station to Fergal, our CEO, we agreed that press coverage, awards and accolades are not what it's about, it's all about sales, sales and internationalisation but it is nice to get a thumbs up to keep us on the straight and narrow and to hear respected third parties affirm our actions so thank you all but that's it, we're back to business.