“The average age of a successful entrepreneur in high-growth industries such as computers, health care, and aerospace is 40. Twice as many successful entrepreneurs are over 50 as under 25. The vast majority — 75 percent — have more than six years of industry experience and half have more than 10 years when they create their startup,” says Duke University scholar Vivek Wadhwa, who studied 549 successful technology ventures. Meanwhile, data from the Kauffman Foundation indicates the highest rate of entrepreneurship in America has shifted to the 55-64 age group, with people over 55 almost twice as likely to found successful companies than those between 20 and 34.
The narrative of "it's hard to start a company when you have a family and a mortgage" might seem intuitive, but the data around entrepreneurship and small business ownership in this country shows that most people don't start successful businesses when they're young, single and have limited responsibilities.
> If you are an engineer, you likely graduated at 22. By the time you hit 29, you've had 7 years of real world engineering experience.
> Good enough to start your own company, in my opinion.
I don't want to discount the value of engineering experience, but this is hardly all that's required for success. One should not mistake Silicon Valley investors tripping over themselves to provide seed funding to engineers with the creation of successful businesses. A lot of the startups today aren't going anywhere, and you just don't hear a lot about the failures because employees typically aren't out of work for long when the money runs out.
Looking at some of the successful 40+ entrepreneurs, it strikes me that the 40 year old entrepreneur in a high growth industry has a very different profile than a 40 year old entrepreneur in a more "traditional" industry like food & beverages, retail, etc.
The former is usually composed of highly educated execs with business experience and a technical background. They jump in after identifying a core problem in their industry and usually have the technical chops + connections to solve it.
From https://hbr.org/2013/06/entrepreneurs-get-better-with/:
“The average age of a successful entrepreneur in high-growth industries such as computers, health care, and aerospace is 40. Twice as many successful entrepreneurs are over 50 as under 25. The vast majority — 75 percent — have more than six years of industry experience and half have more than 10 years when they create their startup,” says Duke University scholar Vivek Wadhwa, who studied 549 successful technology ventures. Meanwhile, data from the Kauffman Foundation indicates the highest rate of entrepreneurship in America has shifted to the 55-64 age group, with people over 55 almost twice as likely to found successful companies than those between 20 and 34.
The narrative of "it's hard to start a company when you have a family and a mortgage" might seem intuitive, but the data around entrepreneurship and small business ownership in this country shows that most people don't start successful businesses when they're young, single and have limited responsibilities.
> If you are an engineer, you likely graduated at 22. By the time you hit 29, you've had 7 years of real world engineering experience.
> Good enough to start your own company, in my opinion.
I don't want to discount the value of engineering experience, but this is hardly all that's required for success. One should not mistake Silicon Valley investors tripping over themselves to provide seed funding to engineers with the creation of successful businesses. A lot of the startups today aren't going anywhere, and you just don't hear a lot about the failures because employees typically aren't out of work for long when the money runs out.