×

Privacy Policy
Copyright © 2005-2024; Paul O'Brien - STARTUP ECONOMIST - All Rights Reserved

Subscribe via Substack

The Missing Infrastructure of Entrepreneurship: A Policy Guide for Cities and States

Tuesday, 26 August 2025 by
Governments keep insisting they’re “supporting entrepreneurship,” yet the tools they fund are usually the bureaucratic equivalent of a pep rally: innovation hubs with free Wi-Fi, pitch competitions, and motivational speakers who read the same three startup books as everyone else. These things create the appearance of activity but deliver outcomes only for the handful of
Read more
48 Comments

Innovation Isn’t Real Estate: Why Startup Hubs Waste Money

Thursday, 21 August 2025 by
The garage myth keeps fooling policymakers Innovation is not a real estate play, and your innovation district is likely disappointing entrepreneurs. Yet cities, universities, and corporations keep pouring millions into gleaming new “innovation spaces” and “hubs,” mistaking glass walls and free Wi-Fi for entrepreneurship. To some extent, understandably; startup folklore inspires us with stories of
Read more
37 Comments

Bogotá, Colombia; Latin America’s Next Startup Ascent

Friday, 15 August 2025 by
Colombia has always been a country in motion; politically, culturally, and economically. But motion isn’t the same as progress, and progress isn’t guaranteed. For generations, Colombians have adapted to change not because they wanted to, but because they had to. It’s in this crucible of necessity that the country’s entrepreneurial spirit was forged and potential
Read more
11 Comments

Regional Collapse We Keep Pretending Isn’t Happening

Thursday, 07 August 2025 by
Something’s gone wrong in the way we structure governance; so wrong that it’s now normalized for elected leaders to turn to govern through coercion rather than consensus So wrong that the people who actually build and sustain the economy (workers, founders, educators, families) are often the last ones consulted about how that economy is governed.
Read more
28 Comments

Why Startups and Cities Fail Without a Clear Narrative: ACES for Ventures and Ecosystems

Wednesday, 06 August 2025 by
Most of you don’t fail because they lack a great product, brilliant founders, or access to capital. You fail because you haven’t worked out how to tell your story. You fail because your narrative doesn’t build trust, urgency, or credibility; three things that must happen before you ever get to the sale. This isn’t just
Read more
15 Comments

Startup Detroit: From Cranks to Code; How the Motor City Is Revving a New Engine

Tuesday, 29 July 2025 by
Steel-Belt Beginnings & Motown Beats: Why Detroit Built Everything from Ford to Funk Long before it became a symbol of rust a city off track, Detroit was a strategic settlement founded in 1701 by Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac at Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit, a riverfront trade nexus between French Canada and the Great Lakes.
Read more
5 Comments

Botswana’s Startup Paradox: Why Africa Searches for Venture Capital

Wednesday, 16 July 2025 by
This is a country with the continent’s most stable democracy, solid credit ratings, one of the fastest-growing economies in Africa over the past fifty years, and the world’s largest diamond producer.  Having just released our research into why venture capital avoids regions of the world, my attention turned to Africa because the continent is arguably
Read more
41 Comments
TOP