Paul O'Connor

I lead a rapidly growing 50-person venture studio that builds new businesses across a range of industries - sometimes in partnership with large corporates, sometimes by ourselves (we bootstrap until new founders carry things forward post-product-market-fit). We're currently building across insurance, sports, logistics and wellness.

My role is essentially Chief-Business-Building-Coach-In-Residence - which feels like a pretty good fit.

Prior to The49, I founded an insurtech startup in the UK (Guevara), which ultimately failed after we raised our Series A (out of the UK and US), got a regulatory license and then fell at convincing investors to park regulatory capital in a bank account.

I’ve been board advisor to around 20 startups to date. All following a left-field turn from the world of actuarial into business building around 6 years into my career.

I am also an enormous culture-building-nerd (per my additional expertise, below), and a strong advocate of play in the workplace.