investing Archives - Startup Economist

How Funding Startups is Like Betting on Horses

Monday, 09 August 2021 by Paul O'Brien

Last week, a bit of a controversial, but thought-provoking, perspective about Venture Capital caught the attention of a lot of my readers and followers. There has been a horrific rash of *VC Bad* propaganda and misinformation lately, sparking my thought that people are being misled about the what Venture Capital is and does. That, entrepreneurs are frustrated

Published in Industry, Insights / Research, Startups

15 Comments

The Future of our Economy Lies in Property Development and Startups Finding Common Ground

Thursday, 17 December 2020 by Paul O'Brien

“Perhaps one of the most important financial decisions a forest landowner will make is determining when to harvest timber.” That, the opening of a PennState article exploring the financial decisions land owners consider in this use case, including how to determine and calculate when to maximize financial returns, prompted a thought about investing in property

city planning commercial property economic development investing investment real estate real estate development venture capital

Published in Economic Development, Startups

20 Comments

Do Startups Not Need to Be Profitable?

Wednesday, 14 August 2019 by Paul O'Brien

We’re in this really weird era as Silicon Valley creeps out to the rest of the world, in which investors elsewhere, traditional business owners, and the like, keep advising everyone to, “focus on customers,” “it’s all about revenue,” and questions such as this. Startups never needed to become profitable. Venture Capital investors fund EXITS Grants fund

funding investing profit profitability revenue startups

Published in Insights / Research, Search

28 Comments

Venture Capital in Texas

Thursday, 26 July 2018 by Paul O'Brien

The last time I had an opportunity to do this at such a scale was during Amazon’s Startup Day. What is the state of the Texas venture capital ecosystem? Interestingly, personally, since speaking for Amazon, Austin has been hemming and hawing about HQ2 and while the merit of that happening or not, is fodder for

funding investing startups texas vc venture capital

Published in Startups, Insights / Research

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Conspire to Change Austin Startups

Friday, 11 August 2017 by Paul O'Brien

Peter Thiel, notable by way of PayPal, Founders Fund, and Zero to One, if you’re not familiar, noted once that, “a great company is a conspiracy to change the world.” I was honored recently to be asked by one of Austin’s great mentors and investors, Ryan Merket, to keynote Amazon’s AWS Startup Day in Austin.

Amazon austin aws investing texas venture capital

Published in Startups, Texas Startups

16 Comments