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Comment by pg | Hacker News Reader

I almost wish now that I hadn't cut this footnote from Startup = Growth:

   Failure to distinguish between startups and ordinary
   companies is the source of the news stories we see 
   every six months or so announcing the discovery that, 
   contrary to popular belief, most entrepreneurs are in 
   their forties.

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While I can appreciate the difference in definition between a made-to-scale startup and a more traditional business, I disagree that the former is "an entrepreneur" and the latter isn't. In fact, I'd argue that, if anything, it's the opposite. An entrepreneur builds a sustainable business. A "startup founder" is trying to strike oil.

These are very different things with different skills required, but, as the startup founder is the new thing here, it should get a new word instead of trying to force an existing, understood term to have a new meaning and just causing a lot of confusion as a result.

He never said the latter isn't an entrepreneur.

You, are right; but there is ambiguity. 'Startup' is not never mentioned by the authors.

If ordinary company founders are not excluded, then distinguishing between startups and ordinary companies would not change the fact that most entrepreneurs are in their forties. If it's a distinction without a difference, why distinguish?

I'm not sure I understand you correctly, but he's saying that startup founders tend to be young, probably due to the risk profile of startups vs small businesses. Entrepreneurs as a whole (a much larger group) may well be in their forties on average, though.

Edit: Does anyone happen to know the success rate (for some definition of success) for restaurants?

According to this[1] Bloomberg article, failure rate is roughly 60%. Failure rate is defined as changing ownership within three years of founding.

Pretty low failure rate, compared to a startup.

[1] http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2007-04-16/the-restauran...

Funny that ownership change is usually considered a startup success.

I thought the Kaufmann survey covered tech entrepreneurs specifically? How would those companies not qualify as startups?

Isn't it possible that due to the way YC is structured ($18k of funding for 3 months where you have to relocate to the Bay Area), your sample is strongly biased towards younger founders, and that the median age for a successful startup founder is actually 40 or older?

Not all technology companies are startups, just as not all startups are technology companies.

I'm curious where you would put Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Google, and Apple on the startup <-> ordinary business continuum, when they started?

That doesn't really answer my question. Your original comment makes it sound like you don't know if the Kaufmann survey includes fast-growing companies, so you've assumed that it doesn't because then startups are often founded by people who are aged 40 and that contradicts your personal experience.

Sure it does. Your question was how could companies founded by "tech entrepreneurs specifically" "not qualify as startups?" I explained that you were making the common mistake of assuming that all newly founded technology companies were ipso facto startups. In fact the test of a startup is growth rate, and while technology is a common means to that end, there are plenty of companies working on technology (for example, consulting firms) that don't have rapid growth.

Obviously my knowledge of startups isn't limited to those we've funded.

If you're really interested in the question of successful founders' ages and not just using this as an excuse to argue with me, you can learn a lot from publicly available information. Make a list of the most successful startups of recent times, and find the average ages of their founders. E.g. what was the average age of the founders of Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google, and Facebook?

Paul - You are certainly describing something important but your narrower definition of startup conflicts with the prior definition as being a company that is searching for a repeatable and scalable business model (http://steveblank.com/2010/01/25/whats-a-startup-first-princ...). I am doing exactly this but I won't gamble on seeing growth sufficient to interest a VC.

What you seem to have identified in 'Startup = Growth' is a subset of the startup ecosystem more akin to 'wildcatting.' Both wildcatters and the ventures you seek risk capital from domain experts. These wildcatting risks and rewards are huge as you know better than most.

Maybe a more dignified word than 'wildcatting' can be found but 'startup' is taken.

I could be wrong but isn't this whole mass scale "founding" by late teen to twenty somethings a new phenomenon? Yes, Gates, Jobs etc. had founded companies in that age group but it didn't happen at this scale.

Also, I think that this is primarily restricted to Internet where it has become increasingly easy to start new companies, and people create a mobile app and call it a "startup". Telecom and Semiconductor companies are still founded by more experienced people, though I don't have age data.

I'm not sure if you meant it that way, but personally I found your comment a little condescending towards people in their forties, and I'm one of them having just crossed over the threshold. As people in their youth have done amazing things, so have people in their mid to late years, and its more about attitude than age in my very humble opinion.

But are you willing to go so far as to suggest there is a correlation between success in a "startup" and the founders age being younger?

Sorry if I am a bit dubious of the claim.

Here is how I see this - the age of entrepreneurs depends on level of expertise and previous experience needed to run a business:

- for Web / consumer startup the majority of entrepreneurs are in 20s

- for enterprise enterprise applications startup is seems like entrepreneurs in 30s

- for enterprise infrastructure startup is seems like entrepreneurs are in 40s

As of now the most of growth is in Web / consumer startup so it seems like all entrepreneurs needs to be in 20s.

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