Why is “Are startup founders different?” Still a Meaningful Question??
Thursday, 03 July 2025
It’s always amusing when mainstream media stumbles into a conversation the rest of us have been having for, oh, I don’t know… decades? This week, The Economist decided to pose the bold question: “Are startup founders different?” as if it’s some new frontier of behavioral science. Imagine walking into a neuroscience conference and breathlessly announcing
- Published in Insights / Research, Startups
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Why Most Startups Fail to Get Enough Attention
Wednesday, 18 June 2025
Most startups don’t die because they lacked funding. They don’t die because of bad code, poor vision, lack of a business plan, or the boogeyman of “not having product-market fit.” They die because no one noticed they were alive in the first place. We romanticize startup failure as some noble rite of passage (cue the
Building a Tough Tech Venture Studio
Tuesday, 17 June 2025
Welcome to the frontier of innovation that doesn’t get VC Twitter likes or SXSW panels, the mud-covered, steel-reinforced, and sometimes radioactive frontier of “Tough Tech” (my word, I’m trying to come up with something to distinguish not-consumer, not-university, not just-apps). This isn’t SaaS, crypto, or your fourth AI wrapper for ChatGPT, this is the real
- Published in Economic Development, Startups
You Don’t Need Traction. You Need to Understand Why They Say You Do.
Friday, 13 June 2025
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
Startups Are Getting Crushed by Politics, Not Product; Here’s the Hire That Can Save You
Thursday, 05 June 2025
You’ve probably heard it in every startup pitch deck since the dawn of Lean: “We’re hiring a killer PM to build the roadmap.” Or worse, “Our Head of Product will drive user adoption and retention.” Bless their hearts. That mindset is the startup equivalent of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, blind to the reality
- Published in Startups
New Collar Jobs and the Critical Distinction of Startups from Small Businesses
Thursday, 29 May 2025
Today at the Texas Venture Forum in Austin, TX, we had the honor of hearing from the 28th Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, Kelly Loeffler. Loeffler, a former business executive, co-owner of a WNBA team, and founder of a commodity exchange, now carries a unique blend of corporate, public, and policy experience to
- Published in Economic Development, Startups
Startup Ecosystems Fail Because of Investors
Wednesday, 28 May 2025
Yes, I meant what I said in that headline… let’s see if I can back it up. In my conversation with Bryan Hancock on Executive Connect, I pulled back the curtain on the startup mythology that’s selling cities, founders, and investors a false bill of goods. We don’t need more accelerators. We need people who
- Published in Economic Development, Startups