Age and Entrepreneurism

Are you too young to start a business? Is age a defining factor in entrepreneurship? Let’s look at the link between age and entrepreneurism more closely to find the answers.

Examples of Entrepreneurs

Think of the most well-known founders, from Mark Zuckerberg to Bill Gates. Many entrepreneurs were in their 20s and early 30s when they started organizations that are today worth billions of dollars. A more recent example is Drew Houston, who started the storage platform Dropbox at the age of 24.

Of course, there are older successes in startups too. Just look at Reid Hoffman, who started LinkedIn at age 25 or Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, who was 42 at the time.

Therefore, what we can deduce is that age is not a barrier to succeeding at a startup. With that being said, there are pros and cons of starting a business at a certain age in life.

Startup Success at Different Ages

An advantage of young startup success is that the young are often confident in their abilities and probably have less to lose than do older people. They’re fresh out of college and have no sense of failure. Armed with optimism, they are more likely to be risk takers than the older generation with kids or mortgage payments. The younger person typically has more energy than an older adult too.

On the other hand, a slightly older entrepreneur has experience in the workplace and may be more financially stable than a younger person. They have a stable ground on which they stand and a clear focus of what is the goal. The older entrepreneur has made mistakes and learned from those experiences, in addition to making contacts in the relevant industry that a younger individual may not yet have in place.

Concluding Thoughts: Does Age Matter in Entrepreneurship?

Having looked at both sides of the coin, we conclude that age is only a number when it comes to startup success. Entrepreneurs span a wide age range. Truly, it is the quality of the idea as well as if the individual has the skills and support to bring the product or service to market that matter the most.