THE economy is sliding from recession to depression. The Government has slashed spending. Companies are going bust every day. Those who have money are holding on to it and only the rich and the brave are spending.

So who exactly is mad enough to set up a business when Ireland is going through its worst economic slump in decades? Many Irish entrepreneurs are still pursuing fledgling business interests, undeterred by the unprecedented financial crisis. Here three entrepreneurs who are enjoying a boom during the gloom show how, even in an economic downturn, good business ideas will prevail.

Dubliner Karen Brown was, by her own admission, the girl some voted least likely to succeed; she failed her Leaving Certificate, had a baby at 18 with her Polish partner Tomasz and later moved with him to Sligo. She defied their expectations. Now 21, she runs her own thriving company distributing an organic range of false tan and beauty products, and has recently tucked a prestigious emerging business award under her belt.

How did she do it? With a good product, an initial investment of €25,000 and lots of leg work. "I wanted more for myself than that. I didn't want to be tied down, a parent sitting at home on social welfare. If I can do it, there is hope for anybody out there, especially for young mothers.

"A lot of young people think that if you have a child at a young age, you will never get anywhere," she said.

Karen took inspiration from her late father, who set up his own business in Dun Laoghaire but died suddenly aged 41. Karen, the eldest, inherited his work ethic.

She had worked in the hospitality industry and while looking after her baby in Sligo, she began casting her eye around for a business plan of her own.

At first she considered selling pancakes from a van in Strand Hill and importing stone from China, before turning her attentions to cosmetics. She and Tomasz identified a gap in the market for Polish cosmetics, which they started importing. Then Karen hit on fake tan, so beloved by fair-skinned Irish girls. She saw a gap in the market for clean, eco-friendly false tan products, unlike the chemical-laden variety that dominated the market.

After a bit of research, she found VANI-T, an organic, additive-free false tan from Australia. She bought some samples and when two beauty gurus gave the product a resounding thumbs-up, she immediately pursued the licence to distribute it in Ireland. She fought off one of Ireland's leading cosmetic distributors to win the contract from VANI-T's Australian founder last year. Bank of Ireland gave her a business loan of €25,000.

Some 12 months and 70,000km later, her company, Chic Cosmetics, has got the product into hundreds of pharmacies, salons and spas across Ireland. The hard work has paid off; the company, run from an office and warehouse in west Dublin, is now turning over €30,000 a month. It is introducing new ranges and will move into a flagship store, Arnotts, early in May.

"My advice to anyone starting up their own business would be to firstly choose something you absolutely, passionately love and truly believe in -- you will be spending a great deal of time with this baby. Secondly, know your market inside and out. Know your competition and seize opportunities as they arise," said Karen.

It's not quite turning water into wine but Kieran McKenna, 44, has converted ordinary tap water into profitable business in the past and is in the process of doing so again.

The microbiology graduate was 26 when he and business partner, Brian Mooney, set up AWS water cooler company for £4,000 a piece. They sold the company 11 years later for more than €7m. His next project? Packaging water for cooler systems in environmentally friendly recyclable bags rather than cumbersome plastic containers.

You will already know the bags from wine boxes and fruit juices; but the packaging never worked for water because it somehow affected the taste. Technological advances have resolved those problems and Kieran is first in with his company, Aqueduct Investments Ltd. It was one of those "blindingly obvious" ideas, said Kieran.

Bag-in-box packaging is easier to store, transport and deliver. Nor do distributors have the added cost of having to collect and recycle the empty plastic bottles; the disused "bag in box" packaging is simply dumped in the office recycling bin. Kieran has received strong expressions of interest from 41 countries.

He has found his first plant in Denmark and hopes to be operational very soon. But it hasn't all been plain sailing; an investor pulled out last year and he described September to January as "very, very difficult" as he struggled to find funding. He recently secured new investment and hopes to be operational soon.

Imagine treating household goods with a substance that could convert energy from the sun to power; SolarPrint is a green energy company working on doing just that.

The company was founded by Dr Mazhar Bari, a Dublin-based physicist who has developed a new solar cell solution with enormous commercial potential. Dr Bari patented his work last year and teamed up with Ray Horgan and Andre Fernon, who have business backgrounds, to develop this new solar technology for the market.

Although the science is complex, the impact of his invention is easy to grasp. Effectively, he has developed a new solar cell substance that could be applied like paint to household goods such as batteries, laptops, glass or metal.

Theoretically, the substance could be integrated into a car, allowing the motor to recharge itself using solar power, according to Fernon. Thanks to initial investment from friends and family, the company has recently developed a prototype. The next step is the production line.

After that, the company, based in Blackpitts in Dublin's south inner city, is targeting developing countries with unreliable and patchy electricity supply. The aim is to produce self-charging mobile phone batteries, harnessing energy from natural sunlight, all in line with the company's motto to be an "ethical, innovative, world-class provider of secure and sustainable solar energy".

- Maeve Sheehan

www.independent.ie/