team Archives - Startup Economist

You Don’t Need Traction. You Need to Understand Why They Say You Do.

Friday, 13 June 2025 by Paul O'Brien

There’s a special kind of eye twitch that founders get the 37th time they hear, “We’d love to invest, but you need more traction.” It’s a vague hand-wave of a dismissal that sounds helpful, but is really just cowardice in a hoodie. And when you ask what kind of traction they mean, they blink like

Published in Insights / Research, Raising Capital, Startups

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Set Up Your AI Board of Advisors

Monday, 27 January 2025 by Paul O'Brien

Among the incubators in which I’m involved, and in conversations with founders, it’s evident that most need startup experienced advisors; the brightest of founders even asking for them in their ask at the end of a pitch (before asking for funding). Evident in 90% of startups is that they lack the CMO but don’t have

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Published in Startups

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You Can Develop the Personality Traits that Correlate with Startup Success, Here’s How

Thursday, 21 November 2024 by Paul O'Brien

Launching a startup demands resilience, creativity, and a touch of audacity. Like it or not (and even agree with it or not), the research is well established finding that certain personalities, and the characteristics of a person, to some extent more than experience or skills, determine success or failure. Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, University

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Published in Insights / Research, Startups

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Seeking Better Startup Founder Agreements

Monday, 28 October 2024 by Paul O'Brien

Ever see a pie chart like this, or can you at least envision one, wherein a partner of yours (or God-forbid, you), expect a majority control of a startup? I get asked all the time, about how to handle retaining control when it was my idea or how to deal with a cofounder who wants

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Published in Insights / Research, Startups

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Finding the Right Cofounder for your Startup

Tuesday, 18 June 2024 by Paul O'Brien

The past decade of research into entrepreneurship and startups has proven rather conclusively that success is all but determined by the team in place, and that there are certain personalities, skills, and experiences that contribute to success, or assure failure. This has my head spinning as it should of founders, that when the market validates that

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Published in Startups

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Startups: What Exactly is Execution?

Sunday, 03 December 2023 by Paul O'Brien

I want to put your head on a specific focus as we explore this question. In the last few weeks, I’ve tackled the question of an ideal team for a startup, sharing new research about personalities, been critical of expectations, and proposed that understanding and avoiding how startups fail is more important than attention directed

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Published in Insights / Research, Startups

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Success as a Startup Founder? Need for variety and novelty, reduced modesty, an openness to adventure, and heightened energy levels

Thursday, 19 October 2023 by Paul O'Brien

A recent study conducted by researchers from the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and the University of Melbourne examined data from over 21,000 startup founders, formally identifying six key startup founder personality types associated with success. Notably, the research indicates that the collective personalities of a startup’s entire founding team significantly influence the venture’s

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Published in Insights / Research, Startups

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