Insights / Research Archives - Startup Economist

You Don’t Need Traction. You Need to Understand Why They Say You Do.

Friday, 13 June 2025 by Paul O'Brien

There’s a special kind of eye twitch that founders get the 37th time they hear, “We’d love to invest, but you need more traction.” It’s a vague hand-wave of a dismissal that sounds helpful, but is really just cowardice in a hoodie. And when you ask what kind of traction they mean, they blink like

Published in Insights / Research, Raising Capital, Startups

8 Comments

Struggling? Network In Real Life.

Wednesday, 30 April 2025 by Paul O'Brien

I sat in the Texas Capitol this week, doing some legislative work, where a group of (probably) early 20-year-old staffers, having lunch, were talking about how and where to get to know more people. All, talking but on their phones, but what caught my attention was discussion of twitter, TikTok, some local venues, getting into

career contacts introductions jobs networking referrals

Published in Insights / Research, Social Media

21 Comments

If You’re Asking If You Can Start a Startup, We Know How Likely You Are to Fail — And It’s a Lot Worse Than the Average

Wednesday, 09 April 2025 by Paul O'Brien

This is one of those “I did the math” posts, and it might inspire you, but it could also discourage you so before I let you go on into the depths of discouragement, let me point out that what we’re exploring here is how to avoid failure – that, if the math prove that you’re

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Published in Insights / Research, Startups

27 Comments

Is it Possible to Future Proof a Career Given AI?

Saturday, 04 January 2025 by Paul O'Brien

What Marketing Could Teach Us if We Were Actually Marketing Jack Ma, speaking at the World Economic Forum in 2019, warned:“We have to teach our kids something unique, so that a machine can never catch up with us: values, believing, independent thinking, teamwork, care for others—the soft skills—sports, music, painting, arts, to make sure humans

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Published in Economic Development, Insights / Research

22 Comments

Pipeline > Data > Community > Audience > Customer

Thursday, 19 December 2024 by Paul O'Brien

Why Pipelines Trump Customers: Rethinking Value Creation in Startups It’s often said that “every startup needs customers.” That’s true. Without someone paying for your product or service, you don’t have a business. But this oft-repeated mantra misses the mark entirely when it comes to understanding value creation—the kind of value venture capitalists care about. Owning

entrepreneurship fundraising marketing value value creation venture capital

Published in Data, Insights / Research, Startups

5 Comments

Marketing is Leading Tech Companies Again, Faster Than You Think

Friday, 13 December 2024 by Paul O'Brien

The tectonic shift in how tech companies operate is unmistakable: whether evident in VCs saying Storytellers will run the world, advisors shifting to stress that media is most important, or research validating that marketing is what defines a company’s success or failure, people are waking up again to the fact that marketing runs your business.

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Published in Advertising, AI, Insights / Research, Social Media

24 Comments

How to Get More Out of Entrepreneurs

Thursday, 12 December 2024 by Paul O'Brien

Whether you are an investor, a founder seeking advice, a business owner, or someone working through a city to encourage economic growth, we can be certain that you engage with people who are entrepreneurial. Certain of that, having read the body of works about entrepreneurship, the studies about entrepreneurs, and even the psychological works related

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Published in Insights / Research, Startup Ecosystems, Startups

18 Comments