By Business & Finance 
Oisin Hanrahan, co-founder of Handy takes the Business & Finance 60 second challenge.
Q. What was your first job?
Scrubbing dishes in a hotel kitchen in Saggart during secondary school. It taught me the value of hard work early on.Q. What would you regard as your greatest achievement to date?
Without a doubt, building the Handy team. In the past six months alone, we’ve made a successful acquisition, announced our third round of funding totaling $30m by Revolution Growth and expanded our service to 14 new cities including London — our first European city.
None of this would have been possible without the team.
Q. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
‘Focus on the people’ — running a business is all about building and fostering relationships.
Q. If you could step into the shoes of one business person for the day, who would it be and why?
There are a tremendous amount of people who I admire in the industry so it’s impossible for me to pick just one!
Q. In three words or less, how do you define success?
Making an impact.
Q. How do you motivate yourself and your staff?
At Handy, we believe achievement is its own reward and there is no greater substitute for a job well done. We want to ensure that our customers have the best experience and that starts with ensuring that our team believes in what we’re doing and where we see the company going.
Q. How do you relax?
I love to travel, cook and read about all things technology, business and economics. When traveling I like to do something active — particularly snowboarding or sailing.
Q. What’s your motto?
Take your work seriously but not yourself.
Q. What are your aspirations for the future of your business?
We want to redefine the service industry and be a one-stop-shop for all of your household needs, allowing you to turn your mobile phone into a remote control for getting things done around the home.
Who is Oisin Hanrahan?
Oisin Hanrahan is CEO and co-founder of Handy (previously known as HandyBook), the on-demand home improvement and cleaning service that offers its professional and reliable home cleaning and repair service at a tap of an app.
Prior to Handy, when he was just 18 years old, Hanrahan founded Clearwater Group, a real estate development company in Budapest, Hungary. Clearwater Group went on to successfully complete a number of multi-million euro developments and managed the real estate assets and rental needs of buyers.
After Clearwater Group, Hanrahan established The Undergraduate Awards which has become the world’s largest pan-discipline awards programme. He also established MiCandidate, which became the leading source for online election information across Europe in 2009.
