storytelling Archives - Startup Economist

The Startup Framework: A Better Pitch through Storytelling

Sunday, 29 March 2026 by Paul O'Brien

You learned something in elementary school that ruined your ability to communicate as a founder: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. That’s the order they taught you, and it’s wrong. Not wrong in the sense that those aren’t the right questions (they are, and they’re the First Principle questions that matter), but wrong in

Published in Startups

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Your Startup Has a Story Problem

Wednesday, 25 March 2026 by Paul O'Brien

Congratulations! You have a pitch deck. So does every other founder about to fail. Provocation aside, let’s take that thought seriously, that roughly 90% of startups die, and the overwhelming majority of those dead ventures had a pitch deck, went through an accelerator, followed a template, and still couldn’t get anyone to care. CB Insights

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Published in Startups

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How Streaming Shows That AI Is Making the Product a Commodity, Here’s How Startup Founders Survive

Sunday, 01 March 2026 by Paul O'Brien

I find myself more oriented to media than most. I am a huge live music fan extending well beyond concerts and festivals into even musicals and Broadway. My career started in advertising by way of Yahoo! when “online” was little more than a concept. I was among the first with Netflix, familiar with The Pirate

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Published in Startups

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The Better Startup Pitch Test: Why Most Decks Fail Before Investors Ever Say No

Monday, 09 February 2026 by Paul O'Brien

Most pitch decks don’t fail because the startup is doomed (though I’ve explained how we know that’s the case just from how you pitch, here). They fail because the founder is thinking in PowerPoint instead of economics, incentives, and narrative logic. Every founder asks for the template to follow, as though there is some magic

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Published in Raising Capital, Startups

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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

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Why Startups and Cities Fail Without a Clear Narrative: ACES for Ventures and Ecosystems

Wednesday, 06 August 2025 by Paul O'Brien

Most of you don’t fail because they lack a great product, brilliant founders, or access to capital. You fail because you haven’t worked out how to tell your story. You fail because your narrative doesn’t build trust, urgency, or credibility; three things that must happen before you ever get to the sale. This isn’t just

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Published in Startup Ecosystems, Startups

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Startups and the Art of Worldbuilding

Saturday, 02 August 2025 by Paul O'Brien

Film Producer Anton Jokikunnas recently shared a wonderful observation that “each film is a startup,” kind enough to add a thought I published the other day, “Entrepreneurship isn’t just a decision. It’s a personality type explored to be so by more researchers, universities, and studies than we can count.” Given my past in media, I

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Published in Startups

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