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Lean Startup Is Wrong… or You Are

Wednesday, 12 November 2025 by Paul O'Brien

This is an article I have been sitting with for years. Incessantly pointing out to founders that they’re getting the MVP wrong or that Lean Startup misled them, I want to throw out provocative notion to challenge us all to ask why, with the clarity of what to do in Lean Startup, and so many

Published in Insights / Research, Startups

34 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

When Markets Learn Faster Than Governments

Tuesday, 04 November 2025 by Paul O'Brien

The debate over “market failure” has raged for decades, rooted in a false premise that the economy should behave like an equation rather than an ecosystem. This isn’t just academic. The idea of ‘market failure’ keeps resurfacing in policy debates over AI, climate, and housing, as if the lessons of the last 25 years never

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Published in Economic Development

26 Comments

Put a Bow on your Startup Ecosystem

Friday, 31 October 2025 by Paul O'Brien

If startup ecosystems were a fashion statement, most cities would look like clip on necktie that everyone admires for the good intention of dressing it up. In reality, we’ve overserved accelerators that don’t accelerate, misunderstood venture studios as glorified R&D departments, push university IP commercialization on a market that doesn’t want to license, and host

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Published in Startup Ecosystems

40 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

How Real Ecosystems Outperform Hype: Startup Ecosystem Infrastructure

Friday, 24 October 2025 by Paul O'Brien

What if the problem isn’t that cities can’t build startups, what if the problem is they’re building the wrong kind of systems? In the frenzy to claim, “innovation district,” many regions forget the fundamentals: connections, capital-fit, customer access, and context. In a recent panel for Founder Institute, I brought together three ecosystem practitioners, Levi Velez

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Published in Economic Development

24 Comments