The Anatomy of an Entrepreneur (2009)

In the Philippines in the area I live I can reach a dozen stores within a 5 minute walk. These are stores people run out of their homes. They generally have a room with a barred window where people can walk up and buy basic goods.

Downtown, every parking area has numerous people who will park your scooter and they work off tips. Kids go from bar to bar selling peanuts. Vendors walk around selling fake viagra and cheap watches. People setup make-shift food carts in areas which are heavily trafficked.

Most of these people are working without any sort of license. They are hustlers doing what they need to do to get by. That's my definition of entrepreneur. If you were to survey these people using the same questions the article used, then they would get very different responses.

And this is why this number is so:

> Founders tended to be middle-aged—40 years old on average—when they started their first companies.

Business is primarily about trust, relationships and reducing people's fear. Having 15+ years experience just working with other people (like most middle class working 40 year olds) is a massive advantage when starting a business.

That really surprised me. Maybe it's just a tech entrepreneur thing but I thought the "college drop-out turned founder" narrative was more common.