"I think the challenges are the same in many businesses from an entrepreneurial perspective: what am I trying to do, what's the product, what's the service, and it's also quite critical to work out if what I'm trying to do has been invented already or how am I going to improve on what's out there already."

"Expansion is very important. The biggest things you need to consider when you looking at your options are: what made you popular in the first place; what made you successful; what’s bringing money in and what is keeping your business ticking over. And if you are going to drastically affect those things, it’s probably not the right thing to do."

"People tell you that there is a renaissance in hardware but we actually think there is a renaissance in prototyping. This renaissance in prototyping is fuelling the renaissance in hardware, and it's because of the new materials available for hardware creating phenomenal opportunities around innovation."

"An entrepreneur is someone who jumps off a cliff and builds a plane on the way down". Despite a successful corporate career, Cristina Luminea shares her experience of leaving it all behind to start something out of nothing with Thoughtbox!

"When you are a big guy like Apple every single marketing move you make is going to have effect on your stock price, by the end of the day you could be 50b richer or poorer, just on the basis of what you are doing, but when you are a small guy in a startup, you get to go out and try different logos, messaging and try selling to different niches."

"What I appreciate is being able to come up with a niche unique use case that makes people's lives better - if you can figure out that one little niche use case and you can build your empire around that niche use case. Don't worry about monetisation, because people will pay if it can enhance their lives and the market will find itself..."

"There is not one recipe to follow but that to be open to listen and learn. I often say that startups are kind of like Frankensteins that depending on what you know you first grow one hand and then the other one might be shorter. And then you grow a leg and then the other one ...because this is how resources come to you..."

"We are hiring people right now and anytime I meet someone who scares the shit out of me and someone who can actually replace me easily if I ever leave this company I want to hire them right away. Also if the people around you are happy you get a good product and if you have a very good product you get good profits..."

"If I could go back I would launch even faster and even leaner with something much more basic than what we did... What we learned is that to get the viral growth its important to incentivise people to share content."

"What inspired me to get into bitcoins? I got in touch with bitcoins very early, but I didn’t pay much attention back then. Then I decided to go back to college 2 years ago. For one of the courses I had to submit Android app and I decided to do something useful and not just as it usually happens with college. Then I met with Kevin who had an idea."

"There are no recipes for finding the right balance in terms of scale. It seems that everything is a combination of heuristics, secrets and I suppose figuring it out at the last minute. It's the phone call at four in the morning or the little tweet notification or that something has gone down and that terrifies every CTO out there."

Ireland is probably one of the most generous countries in the world right now in terms of government supports, there's a lot of it out there and yet we see a lot of founders who are agitated or stressed out cos they can't get it or they don't know how to get it..So, know the system!"

"My advice to someone starting out? I think start building while working for somebody else. Sit up until 2 o'clock in the morning. Start with as little money as you can. Friends and family are a good place to start - if it is a good idea they might invest. Get something to the market quickly and try to get some customers who are willing to pay."

"Your pitch is about explaining what you are doing, the problem and your product you have to solve it; market validation; how are you going to make money. It is going to involve doing the market research and doing the business development to get it air tight. So you have actually done an amazing amount of work by the time you have a solid pitch."

"We didn't know we wanted to build a phone, we came up with a digital photo frame idea, a smartphone app and something related to a smartphone. We tested all three of them before they existed just with a landing page. And the landing page basically said: this is what we want to build, if you like it, give us your email address..."

"I always class myself as a Tech Founder. I think the hardest part for a tech-founder is to go out and reach out to customers. The first sale is always the toughest. You are trying to be credible, trustworthy and make sure there is something in for both parties. If you are giving something for free you are off for a bad start..."