Why It's Never Too Late to Start Your Own Company

Odds are that older founders are more likely to succeed. Stop making excuses for not starting your own business.

“The average founder of the fastest-growing tech start-ups was about 45, and 50-year-old entrepreneurs were about twice as likely to have a runaway business success as their 30-year-old counterparts.” This was the conclusion from one of the most in-depth studies on the relationship between age and startup success by researchers from MIT, Northwestern, Wharton and the U.S. Census Bureau.

Mark Zuckerberg famously once said in his youthful hubris, “Young people are just smarter.” And of course he would say that, because he was a young person at the time without any perspective of an older version of himself. We all know the legendary stories of young Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. We rarely hear about the stories of Workday co-founder David Duffield, who started the company at age 65 or Morris Chang, who founded TSMC when he was 55 years old.

The narrative of a young 20-something who lives in a garage and eats ramen while coding and partying makes for a much more interesting Hollywood movie or exposé in Rolling Stone or The Information than one of a 40-something who has to take his kids to elementary school, has a mortgage and plays pickleball for fun. That’s the only reason we’ve been led to believe that successful startups only come from the young with nothing to lose.

Successful Founders Who Started After the Age of 30:

• Eric Yuan, Zoom at 41

• Bill Porter, E-Trade at 54

• Bernie Marcus, Home Depot at 50

• Bob Parsons, GoDaddy at 47

• Reed Hastings, Netflix at 37

• Robert Noyce, Intel at 41

• Leo Goodwin, Geico at 50

• Vera Wang designed her first dress at 40

• David Duffield, PeopleSoft in mid-40s and Workday at 65

• Morris Chang, TSMC at 55

• Sam Walton, Wal-Mart at 44

• Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn at 36

• Arianna Huffington, Huffington Post at 55 and Thrive Global at 66

• Thomas Seibel, Seibel Systems at 41

• Cher Wang, HTC at 39

• Stewart Butterfield, Slack at 40

• Max Levchin, Affirm at 43

• Jack Dorsey, Square at 33

• Jan Koum, WhatsApp at 33

• Jack Ma, Alibaba at 31

• John Warnock, Adobe at 42

• Travis Kalanick, Uber at 32

I’ve had countless conversations over the years, including three in the past week alone, with extremely successful 40-something C-suite executives of major companies. And what struck me is that even with all of their accomplishments, they are all still deathly afraid of failure or what their peers will think of them if they tried to start their own business and fell on their faces. They echoed the same thoughts I had in my late 20s, that they needed just one more job or one more title before they would be willing to take the leap.

I always give them the same advice. There will always be one more job. There will not always be more time. You built up your resume so you could have security, adding another bullet point won’t give you any more buffer for failure. The longer you wait, the higher the opportunity cost of bills, lifestyle, spending habits and comfort. Most execs are used to coming into a big name company with infrastructure and support. They wouldn’t know the first thing about setting up payroll and benefits or filing for an incorporation. You don’t learn any of that as a VP or C-suite exec at a big company. You will only continue to rationalize why you shouldn’t bet on yourself, because ultimately your ego and pride won’t let you. It’s hard going to a dinner party and have people ask you what you do, and go from responding with an important title at a well-known company to being the founder of a no-name startup.

Reasons “Older” Founders are More Likely to Succeed:

• Industry experience and deep domain expertise

• More likely to identify opportunities at larger scale with years of insights

• Existing network of relationships with highly skilled potential team hires as well as with potential customers and partners

• Experience leading and managing people

• Proven success as an executive with decision-making and problem-solving skills

• Have navigated through difficult situations and setbacks

• Less personal financial pressure to make short-sighted decisions

Successful entrepreneurs are much more likely to be middle-aged, not young. For the top 0.1 percent of fastest growing new businesses in the U.S., the average age of the founder in the business’ first year was 45.

Similarly, middle-aged founders dominate successful exits. By our estimation, a 50-year-old founder is 1.8 times more likely than a 30-year-old founder to create one of the highest growth firms. Founders in their early 20s have the lowest likelihood of building a top-growth firm.

Most successful entrepreneurs are older than you think - CNBC

If you’re reading this, and are in your mid-30s to late-50s, and think that you are past your prime and too old to consider starting something from scratch, think again. All the data shows that you are more likely to succeed precisely because you are older. In other words, your years of experience have derisked your potential venture. Now it’s only a matter of believing that and betting on yourself by taking that leap of faith. You owe it to yourself to try. And even if it doesn’t work out, you will never regret having tried. The alternative is taking yet another executive job at yet another company where you have to adapt to a new culture, navigate company politics and report to a new manager or board. Many execs I have spoken to dread this transition process when they consider their next gig. When you start your own company, every day you wake up knowing everything you do has an impact and matters, because it is yours and you call the shots. You get to pick who you get to work with and what you get to work on. Your company’s losses are your losses, but the wins are your wins.

There has never been a better time to start your own company. With AI and the tools available on the market, it has never been easier or more capital efficient to build a business. From building products and solutions, to selling and reaching your target audience, you can start generating revenue from day one. The only one who is holding you back is you. You’ve proven to everyone else that you can do it, now you just need to prove it to yourself. What are you waiting for?