How brutal honesty in Ballymaloe helped put a therapy trailblazer on the path to profitability
Ciara McEnteggart, co-founder of the PBBT Institute, overhauled her mental health therapy business model following the pandemic and advice from a business leader. The company focuses on process-based behaviour therapy, a science-backed approach to mental health.
Why it matters
It illustrates how professional mentorship and external feedback can pivot academic-based startups toward commercial viability.
Two things caused Ciara McEnteggart to tear up the business model of her mental health therapy start-up. The first was the Covid-19 pandemic. The second was the brutal honesty of a seasoned business leader, Frank Madden, at the annual Entrepreneur Experience in Cork.
McEnteggart returned from her weekend in Ballymaloe House Hotel last October “all fired up”, she says. On the Monday morning, she sat down with her business partner, Yvonne Barnes-Holmes: “We had a very long chat. We blocked out the day and we sat down together and just started reworking everything.”
McEnteggart is a prime example of how the Ballymaloe experience benefits emerging entrepreneurs, but she had already learned a lot of business lessons by the time she found herself sitting down with Madden and others – sometimes the hard way.
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