Paul O'Brien’s Post

I shared this week, finally with a few friends, that I feel harshly that if local VCs and government, aren't underwriting a program like Founder Institute in their city but claim to accelerate startups, they are falling just short of malfeasance. Then I wrote it in STARTUP ECONOMIST to make it clearer to hundreds of thousands: https://lnkd.in/gpJxtbk6 "If your city and investors aren't supporting an incubator so that founders develop meaningful opportunities that might lead to value through an accelerator, you should be pissed off at everyone." Founder Institute Texas hosted FounderX in Austin, bringing hundreds of investors, startup ecosystem builders, and startup development organization directors, together to learn from what FI has done for Texas but what more it can do for everyone. Wonderful seeing Adeo Ressi, Martín Martinez, and catching up with Jonathan Greechan... I'm pretty sure I saw Ryan Micheletti Janet Todorova Ayhan K. Isaacs and Scout Tweedie-Yates but there just wasn't enough time to say hello to so many. Tons of startup heroes new and old from Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio! Amazing speakers and perspectives from Jason Calacanis, Linda Avey, Julia Cheek, Allison Ellsworth, Gabe Dominocielo, Lee Shapiro, Stephen Munisteri, Cheryl Sew Hoy, Cara McCarty Abbott, George Ploss, MBA ☁️ and 🚀 Mercedes Bankston, Kamal Hassan, Rajeev Behera, Martin Tobias and Andrew Tauhert, Mike Sherbakov, Esosa Ighodaro, Pat LaPointe, Lyn Graft and Harvin Moore, Sunil Sharma, Paul Kwiatkowski and Robert Kaminski 🎯 You do NOT have a startup ecosystem if you aren't teaching founders, connecting the ideal mentors from anywhere in the world they might be, and preparing startups FOR venture capital and scale. Nearly 10 years ago Martin asked who would raise their hand and make a difference by bringing this curriculum and rigor to Texas. Who could have guessed that so many years later, raising my hand helped change the world ❤️