Why old people make better entrepreneurs than young ones
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My dad is 61, he's currently starting a business.
My company is very small scale because I have limited capital. I'm investing <$2k for now. I'm creating a relatively simple product but the bulk of my work is going into software development and marketing online.
His company is using a contract manufacturer, about 2 million bucks, and really doesn't break any new technical ground. Their products are better than the current market leader, but have existed for a few years. He is bringing new marketing to the process, but most importantly changing the distribution channels. He has contacts at all the current market leading distributors and retailers (he was previously the EVP of the market leader) and is bringing on about 5 full time sales guys to go out and win business.
So the scale is completely different, the reason we think we can win is different (he is focusing on business, I'm focusing on product), but we do have a lot in common.
Both of us are not taking that much risk. I'm working a day job, he has enough in the bank to be retired and is using other people's money. Both of us are working insane hours (he probably is working more than I am because he has a bunch of employees depending on him, I just have myself). He is doing it full time, I am doing it as a sideproject for now.
Neither approach is better or worse, they are just different. The good news is that you can start a business anytime between age 22 and 62 (and younger and older I'm sure). The other good news is that we both enjoy it more than anything else we've done working for other people, so that never gets old. And you can bring enthusiasm to a new venture even if you have been in that industry for 40 years.
Good luck to both you and your dad. And thanks for sharing.
1) When someone in early twenties sets up a successful business it is considerably more newsworthy and is far more likely to get attention than someone in say their 40's, thus distorting public preception.
2) Once you get into your 50's your career options narrow dramatically. You become too expensive, less flexible and potential employers may feel that you are 'stuck in your ways'. Therefore entrepreneurship may in actual fact be a necessity.
Mark Pincus was 41 when he started Zynga. Mark Cuban was in his late-30s when he started what would become Broadcast.com and Mike Bloomberg was about 40 when he started Bloomberg.
Just a few names/ages off the top of my head, though we could obviously name just as many extraordinary entrepreneurs who proved themselves in their 20s/early 30s.
Age matters little for entrepreneurs, I think. What really does though is the amount of time you have and just how much of it you're willing to put in to make something happen.
Even day-to-day operations involve a lot of emotions, such as managing feedback from users. When you start dealing with tons of customers, eventually the situation will come up that you answer the phone and there is an irate user on the other end screaming at you.
Even when you have zero users, you are going to need to make really tough decisions inside the company regarding who is working on it and how much they are being compensated (whether it be for stock or for equity).
As I've gotten older (I'm 29 now), I've seen a dramatic change in my abilities in these regards, abilities that I expect (based on discussions I've had with 40-50 year old people who advise me) will hopefully continue to improve over the next decade or two (until my brain starts to turn to mush, which of course will start to happen, making me sad).
Of course, some people manage to be good at this when they are very young, and some people simply suck at this until they are very old, but I seriously doubt that this incredibly vital skill is something that anyone doesn't get much better at as they get older, whether they are actively trying to or not.
But I greatly disagree that age somehow naturally helps you deal with this. The only thing that does help you deal with it is experience, plain and simple. That's why it helps if you start when you're younger.
If my father (who's 51) decided to start a company tomorrow he'd feel uneasy and make way more mistakes than I would simply because he's never been through it before.
But I still think there's no better way to learn the game than to just go out there and do it... make mistakes, learn/improve, and keep iterating. No one becomes a great entrepreneur overnight; and certainly a lot of those guys I mentioned (Mark Cuban especially) went through a lot of failure before making their first big hit.
But this country loves extreme cases. The media tends to ignore the 40+ successful CEOs out there because it's not uncommon to see someone in that age group running a good business. But when Mark Zuckerberg became the world's youngest billionaire at age 23, everyone wanted to do an interview with him and sell a story around it.
Really, the reason everyone pays attention to Zuck is because he's the exception.
I suspect that those who want young people to drop out of school and start businesses are Pied Pipers running yet another "chew 'em up and spit 'em out" operation like McKinsey or grad school.
Old people bring experience, wisdom, capital and connections to a startup. They either have risk capital or have decided to pursue a riskier path in order to get larger returns.
It's two routes to the same goal and I would argue that it comes down to a mix between the individual, the business, the opportunity and luck. I doubt age has that strong an influence.
No matter whether they succeed or not. In 10 years measure them against their friends and see who has had the most impact.
And now I understand why it is so: the more experience I gain, the better I am at knowing right away if something is going to work or not. But what I gain in efficiency, I lose in innovation.
http://blog.fairsoftware.net/2010/12/16/young-and-clueless-a...