The Big Tech Show: The email from Lego that helped save our company – Emmet O’Neill’s epic journey as CEO of StoryToys

The Big Tech Show

How did Emmet O’Neill end up as CEO of one of the most successful kids' app companies in the world? Was it an easy road? And how often did the company flirt with disaster?

On this week’s episode of The Big Tech Show Adrian chats to CEO of StoryToys.

Over 10 years ago, Emmet left a comfortable job in online education to join StoryToys which wasn’t without its risks.

The CEO spoke about always following his passion in whatever career choice he made. A passion for filmmaking turned in to two years working with Element Pictures. A curiosity about advertising led him to set up a studio for Rothco and when he left online education to work for StoryToys his favourite part of the job was developing kids' apps.

Emmet said that one of the memorable successes for StoryToys was the collaboration with the 1970s book ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar” which they developed into animated games.

It wasn’t all plain sailing though; Emmet’s brother Barry who was CEO of StoryToys at the time, had contacted liquidators as the board’s patience began to run thin regarding investor spending. It was at this low point while the company was downsizing that an email came in from Lego asking StoryToys to pitch for a new project they were working on. Vitally, Lego said that they would pay them for pitching their idea which kept the wolf from the door and the digital animation company ended up winning the contract.

You can listen to the full episode on the Irish Independent website or wherever you get your podcasts.