Startups are often associated with the younger generations. They are considered fresh, innovative, creative, open to new things and eager to experiment. On the other hand, most people associate older people with stolidity, inertia and boredom. Which, admittedly, is often true. But not with all of them! That’s what the article linked here is about, referencing the 2020 Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship academic study.
The study shows that the probability of being successful as a founder increases with age up to the age of 60. The older you get, the more likely you are to succeed. A 50-year-old founder is twice as likely to start a thriving business that either goes public or makes a successful acquisition as a 30-year-old founder. And you don’t necessarily need experience as an entrepreneur to become one. Most successful founders have worked in a company or in another profession before starting their business.
There you go. They highlight three critical factors as recommendations for individuals who may be interested in starting a business:
- 1. you should know the field in which you want to found in depth. Creating something new requires basic knowledge of the status quo.
- 2. you have already been successful in the industry, ideally in corporate jobs. That way you know what can be done better. (Which correlates strongly with point 1).
- 3. you need a lot of intrinsic motivation to stay on the ball. The potential earning of money is an extrinsic motivator that hardly carries one through the lean periods.
So if you think you’re trapped in a boring job, you now have no excuses. It’s far from too late to start with something new and make the world a little better. As is well known, she would have deserved it …
Article published on piqd on August 30, 2022 as a reference to the Forbes article. Older Entrepreneurs Outperform Younger Founders-Shattering Ageism.
