growth Archives - Startup Economist

Entrepreneurs Struggle Beyond Startup

Tuesday, 08 June 2021 by Paul O'Brien

Highly risk tolerant and constantly fixated on doing things better, entrepreneurs tend not to be found running companies. That’s not remotely a knock against entrepreneurs. Operating a company is a management skillset, it’s operational, it’s project based, it’s plan and execute…. and these are skillsets that, while valuable to a founder, are not typically consistent

Published in Startups

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Is ‘Blitzscaling’ Choking Innovation – And Wasting Money?

Thursday, 11 July 2019 by Paul O'Brien

WIRED and Executive in Residence and faculty member at Columbia Business School, Leonard Sherman, published a great look today at the implication of substantial rounds of investment going into young companies. The idea behind the intent, known as Blitzscaling, is to fuel such innovations substantially enough that they can establish a global market share and

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Growth Hacking for Investors

Sunday, 27 November 2016 by Paul O'Brien

I had the honor of sharing, with Austin Pre-Accelerator DivInc, some thoughts about Growth Hacking. The startup program fostering diversity in tech asked for some insight to the idea of growth hacking and I’ll admit, I struggled with how to make an hour talk about such a thing relevant to startup founders. Luckily, I find myself in

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The Tale of Two Founders

Tuesday, 24 March 2015 by Paul O'Brien

Yesterday, famed New York Times cartoonist Kaamran Hafeez featured a sketch that has garnered quite a bit of attention in the startup community. Implied by one “faction” (a term I’m using not to be critical but to distinguish) to offer a tongue-in-cheek jab at founders and investors who arguably embrace market share and scalability over

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Entre to the Internet; Marketing for Startups

Thursday, 17 July 2014 by Paul O'Brien

Thanks to the incredible startup program at Houston’s Rice University, I’ve had a chance to update a popular, but out of date, post about Startup Marketing. In the process, I had a chance to meet the exceptional entrepreneurs in this year’s Owlspark program. While not too dissimilar from that startup marketing post, this update touches

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Published in Advertising, eCommerce, Insights / Research, Search, Social Media, Startups

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The Single Most Important Trait that all Successful Business Owners Have

Thursday, 13 February 2014 by Paul O'Brien

Progress can only be made through unanswered questions. One can’t find success by doing the same thing everyone else does, or making the mistakes others have answered. In starting with unanswered questions, you must agree that some, perhaps many, of your hypothesis, will prove wrong. You will fail, you might succeed. The alternative is that

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Published in Startups

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The Internet of Everything

Thursday, 09 January 2014 by Paul O'Brien

Before the holiday and the end of 2013, I had the distinct honor of joining dozens of San Antonio CEOs and Texas CEO Magazine in spending an hour with Smart Grid Pioneer and author of The Advanced Smart Grid, Andres Carvallo. Why you might ask; if you know me professionally, you know that energy and

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Published in Advertising, Industry, Insights / Research, Startups

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