ecosystem Archives - Startup Economist

The Startup Frontier Hidden in America’s Supply Chain

Thursday, 02 October 2025 by Paul O'Brien

Imagine a modest Ozarks town (once underestimated) emerging as a national hub for retail, supply chain, and CPG innovation. Now imagine that the parent company is actively relocating talent, building a new urban HQ, and doubling down on ecosystem development. That’s Bentonville; once pigeonholed as “Walmart’s little hometown,” now staking a claim as one of

Published in Regional Development

38 Comments

How Hard Tech History Fuels Entrepreneurship – Austin’s Story

Wednesday, 03 September 2025 by Paul O'Brien

Amidst what seems to be a boom of chips in Central Texas, I want to share with everyone, everywhere, how the hard tech of Texas isn’t a result of a recent pivot, there is a history to study in how it grew up around Austin, a history from which we can learn how to build

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Published in Regional Development

29 Comments

Bogotá, Colombia; Latin America’s Next Startup Ascent

Friday, 15 August 2025 by Paul O'Brien

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

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Published in Regional Development, Startup Ecosystems

11 Comments

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

Tuesday, 29 July 2025 by Paul O'Brien

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.

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Published in Regional Development

5 Comments

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

Wednesday, 16 July 2025 by Paul O'Brien

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

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Published in Regional Development

41 Comments

Why Venture Capital Avoids your Startup Ecosystem

Monday, 14 July 2025 by Paul O'Brien

Working with cities throughout the world, developing startup ecosystems, every one of them echos the same in their effort to encourage entrepreneurship, “we’re focused on bringing investors to the table.” What they’re doing is typical, ironically, of founders, who hear a problem and the focus on the solution (which by the way founders, is wrong).

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Published in Featured, Startup Ecosystems

127 Comments

Abilene Grit, Grid, and Genesis

Tuesday, 10 June 2025 by Paul O'Brien

Abilene, Texas, on the surface, might seem like the set of Fallout where a now-restored Texas Film Industry needs a set for a post-apocalyptic Western — a flat, dusty military town with a church on every corner and a Dairy Queen next to it. Scratch that desert veneer (and lack of nuclear fallout) and you’ll

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Published in AI, Data, Regional Development

22 Comments