entrepreneurship Archives - Startup Economist

Better Startup Idea Validation

Wednesday, 10 December 2025 by Paul O'Brien

Despite countless articles and every startup program explaining how to validate a startup idea, one of the (surprisingly) still frequently most asked questions is how to validate a startup. Reading the tea leaves, that tells me not that people actually don’t know (conventional wisdom is “talk to customers”) but rather, that that advice is less

Published in Startups

3 Comments

Why Startup Ecosystems Fail at Scale: The Economic Development Playbook for Capacity Building

Friday, 05 December 2025 by Paul O'Brien

Cities everywhere are doing a lot for entrepreneurs, often sincerely and impressively, and what I’m finding in city after city is that the greatest opportunity is not in another startup program or even fostering a new investor but building capacity. They are supporting some founders, but not more founders. They are helping some investors, but

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Published in Economic Development

38 Comments

There Is No “Era of the Bootstrapped Startup,” There’s Math, Memory Loss, and Better Advice

Tuesday, 02 December 2025 by Paul O'Brien

Every few years, someone declares a new epoch in entrepreneurship. We’ve had the “Era of Lean,” the “Rise of the Micro-VC,” the “Democratization of Innovation,” and (God help us) the phase where every city believed a coworking space with a yellow logo and a couple late career bankers counted as a “startup ecosystem.” With AI

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Published in Startup Ecosystems, Startups, Uncategorized

35 Comments

Startup from the Soul: Grace Is What Matters

Monday, 17 November 2025 by Paul O'Brien

There’s a thought Jeff Buckley once shared, half-interview, half-confession: “Grace is what matters in anything. It keeps you from pulling the trigger too soon. It keeps you from destroying things too foolishly; it sort of keeps you alive and keeps you open for more understanding.” You could hang that on the wall of every entrepreneurs’

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Published in Startups

2 Comments

New Jersey’s Creative Class Isn’t Just Showing Up, It’s Becoming the Payoff for Its Startup Economy

Wednesday, 05 November 2025 by Paul O'Brien

In a few weeks, I’ll be in New Jersey, a part of the world that holds a very special place in my heart, as does nearby Philadelphia, thanks to family, foundational memories as a child and with my own kids, and now as roots to call a home. With that trip in mind, I could

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Published in Regional Development

15 Comments

Startup Investors, Let’s Get to Know Portland, Oregon

Wednesday, 29 October 2025 by Paul O'Brien

If cities were startups, Portland would be the one that never hired a PR firm, preferring instead to let its product (culture) speak for itself. For investors, that confidence has been both its charm and a challenge. Portland is inventive to the point of eccentricity, independent to the point of obstinacy, and so allergic to

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Published in Regional Development

28 Comments

Willy Wonka Inspired a Generation of Founders

Wednesday, 29 October 2025 by Paul O'Brien

He was no wizard. Magic is the soft word we use when we can’t explain how someone bends the laws of reality. Willy Wonka bent them with sugar, steel, and science. His factory wasn’t a place of spells, it was a cathedral of chemistry, a machine that turned the imagination of children into industrial-scale production.

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Published in Startups

19 Comments