entrepreneurship Archives - Startup Economist

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

Published in Regional Development

29 Comments

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

Tuesday, 26 August 2025 by Paul O'Brien

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

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Published in Economic Development, Startups

48 Comments

Innovation Lessons from Quantum Leap, Doctor Who, and Star Trek: Why Every Startup Needs Its CEO, CTO, and CMO

Monday, 25 August 2025 by Paul O'Brien

As someone who grew up on MacGyver inventing solutions from chewing gum wrappers and paperclips, I’m ashamed I never put thought to my second favorite hero of the week, Sam Beckett. I’m a huge fan of what pop culture teaches and inspires in future entrepreneurs because like startups, innovation is never the clean, linear story

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Published in Startups

13 Comments

Because Entrepreneurs are the Greatest Catalyst for Societal Change

Wednesday, 13 August 2025 by Paul O'Brien

We’ve reached a tipping point. In a world awash in pitch decks, podcasted advice, and more bootstrapping encouragement than anyone asked for, the last thing we need is another startup program repeating what you can Google. If you read my work, you know that I have been pushing hard on challenges and gaps that still

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Published in Economic Development, Startups

60 Comments

Solutions to Overcome Ignorance

Monday, 28 July 2025 by Paul O'Brien

Startup Funding Isn’t Broken, It’s Behind Ready for a spicy topic likely to frustrate some friends in my criticism of good intentions? Let’s begin with a blunt but necessary truth: venture capital isn’t broken, most of it just doesn’t know what the hell it’s doing. The problem isn’t capital. It’s experience. And the startup ecosystem,

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Published in Startups

27 Comments

You Don’t Want to Be an Entrepreneur, You Want What It Represents

Friday, 25 July 2025 by Paul O'Brien

If you’re asking why you want to be an entrepreneur, you probably already shouldn’t be. That’s not snark (well, not only snark), it’s insight. I wanted to write this because becoming an entrepreneur, taking entrepreneurship studies, or questions about how to be one, are prolific topics in modern society. The things, entrepreneurs, real ones, aren’t

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Published in Insights / Research, Startups, Uncategorized

17 Comments

We Already Know How to Do This: Stop Reinventing Startup Development Organizations

Friday, 11 July 2025 by Paul O'Brien

Recently, someone asked me, “How do you make a training center for entrepreneurs to be self-sustaining and not just dependent on investors?” And I nearly threw a stapler. Not because the question isn’t valid, because it is, but because we’ve been answering it for decades. The model exists. It’s tested. It’s been done over and

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Published in Economic Development, Startups

27 Comments