content Archives - Startup Economist

The Age of Artificial Truth

Thursday, 19 June 2025 by Paul O'Brien

If Orwell predicted a future of authoritarian oppression, we missed the plot twist: truth isn’t being silenced, it’s being distorted, mass-produced, and flooded upon us like a knock-off Rolex that still ticks. The root isn’t the Press nor Politicians, it’s not the White House or foreign influence, it’s everyone, all of us speaking at once,

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Published in AI, Insights / Research, Social Media

20 Comments

How Substack Quietly Emerged as the Empirical Thinker’s Social Network

Thursday, 16 January 2025 by Paul O'Brien

It’s easy to miss a quiet revolution in a world dominated by the noisy chaos of Twitter threads, AI clickbait, and influencers slinging collagen gummies. But that’s exactly what Substack has pulled off, amidst the rise of AI content pushing audiences even more desperately in search of authenticity. What started as a niche newsletter platform

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Published in Social Media

21 Comments

Media is Capital: Startup Success Starts with Story and Community

Wednesday, 03 July 2024 by Paul O'Brien

Possessing a compelling story outweighs merely having a brilliant idea so much so that media has become the new capital for burgeoning founders. The fundamental concept here is that media — encompassing storytelling, audience engagement, and community building, well beyond what you might consider it to mean in “the press” — serves as a powerful

Advertising audience community content entrepreneurship media news pr startups storytelling

Published in Social Media

7 Comments

Every Company is an Internet Company

Friday, 29 May 2020 by Paul O'Brien

it’s time for the distinction of “internet company” to die. It’s time for the distinction of “tech industry” to die. In 2020, hopefully it’s clear, that every business that hopes to succeed must excel with this foundation of our economy – the internet. All companies are internet companies It’s not dissimilar from the notion that

content digital tranformation internet marketing startups web development

Published in Advertising, Social Media

5 Comments

Creating Content that Impacts

Thursday, 11 July 2019 by Paul O'Brien

There are a few technical skills involved in publishing an article online and then driving engagement and enthusiasm with it. Far too often, I hear from business owners, artists, or entrepreneurs, who “tried blogging” or did “some” podcasting and all but gave up because they didn’t get the results they expected. Come on folks,

blogging content marketing podcasting Social Media video

Published in Search, Social Media

26 Comments

How Content Creation Affects Your Funding

Monday, 16 January 2017 by Paul O'Brien

Content media site Medium announced just days ago that they are restructuring through layoffs and office closings as they “renew their focus.” Medium CEO, Ev Williams, noted that, “in building out this model, we realized we didn’t yet have the right solution to the big question of driving payment for quality content. We had started scaling up the teams to

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Published in Insights / Research, Raising Capital, Search, Social Media

4 Comments

The Only Thing You Need to Know About SEO

Friday, 27 December 2013 by Paul O'Brien

Austin, Texas is still an “SEO Community.” What do I mean by that? I’ve been in Austin three years now and the amount of time I spend advising startups why their desire to hire an SEO is misplaced, is astonishing. To this day, I’m introduced in social settings here as an SEO, clients refer to

blogging content content marketing growth hacking layering optimization search engine optimization search marketing search marketing standard seo