Highlights from our CBN Breakfast at Catalyst with Steve Orr

Photos from our CBN Breakfast at Catalyst with Steve Orr

Why This Is the Best Time in History to Start a Company

Methody Collegians welcomed former pupil Steve Orr (Class of 1990), CEO of Catalyst, to the Collegians Business Breakfast in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter on Thursday 10 September.

Steve opened with a question: in ten years, will companies be bigger or smaller? His prediction that companies will be smaller set up the central argument of his talk. AI is fundamentally changing what it takes to start and grow a business, allowing much smaller teams to achieve what previously required substantial staff and resources.

Drawing on the work of Paul Cheek at MIT, Steve explored the progression from AI assistants that help people complete tasks to systems capable of carrying out business activities with increasing autonomy. Finding customers, preparing quotations and managing administration could increasingly be handled by AI, with people setting the direction and retaining responsibility for judgement.

For entrepreneurs, this lowers some of the biggest barriers to getting started. Skills and capabilities that once required specialist hires are becoming more accessible. More people have the opportunity to turn their knowledge of a problem into a business.

For established business owners, the same shift creates an urgent challenge. A new competitor built around AI could operate with a very different cost base and speed. Steve encouraged leaders to take ownership of understanding what this means for their business and how it might need to change.

Entrepreneurship still requires discipline

Steve also explained why understanding customers remains essential. The ability to build something more quickly does not establish whether anyone needs it or will pay for it.

He highlighted Catalyst’s use of MIT’s Disciplined Entrepreneurship approach, helping founders identify their customers, test assumptions and establish a viable business. As AI makes more of the work possible, choosing the right problem to solve becomes even more important.

What this means for Northern Ireland

Steve challenged the audience to consider Northern Ireland’s potential to build globally competitive companies as these barriers fall. He also asked what this changing world means for young people, parents and those advising them on their futures.

If companies need fewer people, we will need more companies. The ability to create your own job could become one of the most important skills of the next decade. Developing entrepreneurial capability therefore has relevance far beyond those who already see themselves as future founders.

Steve’s message was one of opportunity and responsibility. AI is opening up the possibility of starting a company to more people. Business leaders, educators and parents all have a role in helping people prepare for that future.

Connecting the Methody business community

Just as importantly, the breakfast demonstrated the value of bringing together the considerable experience, expertise and entrepreneurial talent that exists throughout the Methody Collegians community.

The morning began with breakfast and an opportunity to connect before Steve’s presentation, followed by discussion and further time for attendees to continue conversations and make new connections.

These opportunities to bring former pupils and the wider Methody community together are at the heart of the Collegians Business Network. By sharing experience, exchanging ideas and developing relationships across different generations and industries, we hope to build a network that can support not only one another, but also the generations of Methody pupils who follow.

Our sincere thanks go to Steve Orr for giving his time, sharing his insights and engaging with the Methody community, and to everyone who attended and contributed to such a positive and stimulating morning.

If there was one overarching message to take away from the event, it was that the changes ahead should be viewed not simply with apprehension, but with ambition.

For businesses, embrace the opportunities created by AI rather than standing still!