I-TAB.COM:LEARNING A new skill later in life can be challenging, as Andy Hirst, a serial entrepreneur and guitar student, discovered.

One of the more frustrating aspects was being asked to play a few songs for friends, which quickly exhausted his repertoire.

“You are at a house party and maybe get a bit of stage fright and can’t remember all the chords to a song.”

Hirst looked around for a solution, essentially a form of karaoke machine showing guitar chords in time to the song, but couldn’t find one. So in the summer of 2008, he designed his own.

The i-Tab has a five-inch screen that clips onto the end of the guitar and scrolls lyrics and chords in time with the song.

Hirst went to the Frankfurt music fair Musikmesse, the largest trade event in the world, to check if there were similar products coming on to the market.

“We couldn’t find anything like it, so we filed patent applications, which extends to the concept of scrolling lyrics and chords on a portable device.”

Hirst also formed a company, called i-Tab, and refined the software used in the device with researchers in Dublin Institute of Technology. He also secured a manufacturer in China.

I-Tab has signed licensing deals with a number of large music publishing companies, and Hirst says the library will total more than 25,000 songs.

Since then the company has developed quickly, launching the product at Namm, one of the largest music trade shows in the US in January. In April the firm shipped its first consignment to distributors in the UK, Australia and the US.

Hirst, who is also chief executive, plans to sell the device to music distributors and through websites.

“This year we would be looking at around €10 million in turnover, hopefully rising to €25 million next year.” The product retails at around €149. The company employs 17 people.

It’s working on a number of new products including a professional i-Tab, which will follow the musician rather than the original song, and i-Tabs for pianos, marching bands and traditional Irish instruments.

The company has spent about €300,000 to date, about €100,000 of which came from Enterprise Ireland, with much of the remainder coming from small investors.

This is not Hirst’s first entrepreneurial venture and, of the others, “some have done okay, some have failed spectacularly”. The experience “of a guy who has fallen over a few times” is invaluable, he adds.