Paul O’Brien

CEO of MediaTech Ventures, early mid stage startup and venture capital consultant, and economic development advisor.

This, SEO’Brien, is my professional creative outlet; a forum for my ideas – this is where you can learn some things for free.

I have 3 amazing kids, a wonderful wife who makes it possible for me to be who I am; I’m in my 40s now.  I love Netflix, being a Cubmaster, coaching robotics, and playing Minecraft with my kids – I’d rather do that (and admit it, so would you).

For whom I work best: Organizations fostering innovation, founders seeking funding, and investors endeavoring in startups.  I started my career at Yahoo 20 years ago, have helped launch a string of successful startups, and foster economic development through a focus on venture capital ROI. 

Here’s how I work…

1. Analytical.  Everything we do starts and ends with the data. You wouldn’t be here, exploring marketing, if your opinion was working well.
2. Sincere.  I’m an open book and all over the internet.  Let’s be honest, collaborative, and build a relationship.  No, I’m not signing your NDA or non-compete.
3. Up-to-Date.  Marketing technology changes as light speed. One of the key jobs of your CMO is to consume knowledge voraciously.   Know YOUR market.  Know the market.  Know what’s possible and effective.  That’s my job.
4. Driven. You might be satisfied, I am never so.  Since I was humiliated a bit in 4th grade during an Olympics of the Mind brainstorming session, because all I could come up with making is a milk jug bird feeder, I can’t stand being satisfactory.
5. Audience.  There are two factors that create value in business: being innovative and your audience.  Those two things create customers, without which you should just go home.
6. Storytelling.  From your elevator pitch to what makes journalists care, tell stories.
7. Resourceful.  Solve problems quickly and efficiently.  Stop spending money on things that don’t work.  Stop wasting it on solutions that have been replaced by better alternatives.
8. Objective.  Let’s focus on outcomes and not next steps.  What do we need to accomplish?  The answer to that is not what you want to accomplish right now.
9. Open-Minded.  If you can try, test, optimize, and repeat, we’re going to be friends.
10. Search.  The way the world works today is thanks to Google.  Customers search for answers; not necessarily through Google nor search engines.  Let’s address how your audience seeks what you can provide.  Let’s search for the path to your success.  And yes, that means making sure *SEO& and AdWords are capably covered (since 70% or so of all business now happens through there).

What I’ve been doing, generally speaking

I help startups get funded. I work as a partner in venture capital, as founder of MediaTech Ventures, as Director for Texas of the global startup incubator Founder Institute, and through my work on the Boards of the diversity incubator, DivInc, and of Funded House.  Those are my passions and my philanthropies: that’s wherein I’ll meet for coffee or mentor (a bit) but, know yourself and your business – time is valuable; so is mine.

For over 20 years I’ve been working with entrepreneurs, startups, and venture capital firms to foster innovation in public / private partnerships and to help drive capital and growth.  A few articles here are completely off topic while we otherwise float from social media to local search, fund raising to advertising, and from industry research to conferences and events. I learn from you through our discourse here; the hands-on experience I get building this site a testament to what I do.

I uncover why startups and ecosystems are going to fail so we can figure out how to prove me wrong.

Please take some time to listen to Paul O’Brien who to me is one of the best minds in the startup world. He speaks about Funded House at SXSW as well as MediaTech. Well worth the listen.

– Eric Samdahl; Founder, GHSD, and Change Management COO

Where I’ve Been

I’ve held a few formal roles, from VP of Marketing for Zvents and Outright, to managing interactive marketing for HP and designing online advertising for Yahoo! I am honored most of all to be one of the 25 distinguished marketers featured in the Michael Miller book, Online Marketing Heroes, as well as appearing in or writing for Forbes, Techcrunch, Silicon Hills News, Crunchbase, KGO Radio, SXSW, and Webmaster Radio.

Paul O’Brien Speaker Bio

Long time Silicon Valley technology and startup veteran, Paul O’Brien is known as SEO’Brien for his extensive past in the search industry. Now Texan, O’Brien works in Venture Capital Economic Development, serving the investment and venture capital economies directly, through thought leadership, consulting, and startup development. He’s the founder of MediaTech Ventures, a founder and managing director of Funded House, and Director in Founder Institute.

Notably, O’Brien is a seasoned marketer with an early career at Yahoo! and HP. From there he led the early growth of startups such as Outright.com (Acquired by GoDaddy), Zvents (Acquired by eBay’s Stubhub), and MicroVentures (Venture Capital). With technical expertise, O’Brien has consulted with various web properties, designed and developed sites, online communities, e-commerce stores, and web services. Paul was featured in the book, Online Marketing Heroes, and continues to blog at seobrien.com.