- Who is an entrepreneur?
- Is age a factor to be an entrepreneur?
- Founders above the age of 35
Who Is an Entrepreneur?
An entrepreneur is an individual who focuses on creating new businesses and companies. An entrepreneur bears all the risks in starting a company. They are commonly seen as a motivator and an innovator.
Entrepreneurs play a significant role in maintaining the economy of a country. They should continuously develop new ideas, implement it, and finally release it to the market.
Even though an entrepreneur bears all the risks, those who succeed in taking all the risks head-on and overcome it are treated with immense profit, fame, other unique ideas, and business opportunities from other investors.
Here are some of the most commonly faced problems by entrepreneurs when they start to build their own company.
- Overcoming the norms and bureaucracy.
- Hiring people
- Obtaining funding and financing
Is Age a Factor To Be an Entrepreneur?
We know that being an entrepreneur implies that the person should face risks and problems head-on.
Approximately 82 percent of people under 25 years say that they want to start their own company or business.
By successful entrepreneurs, we generally think of people such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, etc. All these famous entrepreneurs started their own company when they were just 20 years old. So, does that imply that only young people can choose Entrepreneurship as their career?
So, how old are you? Do you think it’s too late to possibly quit your current job and start a new business or a company?
If you think of being 40 years old can destroy your possible career as an entrepreneur, you are entirely wrong.
Age doesn’t matter anyhow in starting your own business.
If you believe you can start your own business, then it is the only thing required to attain success.
According to a study conducted by MIT professors, together with the principal economist Bureau, it was shown that in many consumer-facing high tech industries, the average age of the founders lies in the early 40s. The average age is 47.
When you look at successful companies, you can see that the average age of a founder goes up, not down.
Now, one of the advantages of starting your company late are:
- Greater access to financial resources. For example, you can invest in your company from your pocket and not depend on others.
- You will have a ton of experience from your previous company. This might be extremely helpful when you start your own company.
- As you would have a lot of experience, you would have built a vast network that might be useful.
It is proved that start-ups founded by people above 40 years have a whopping 85 percent success rate.
Now, why do people view entrepreneurs as very young people?
It is because people’s mindset is fixated such that people only look for retirement after 40 years and work to save money for the future.
And at 65, we see ourselves as ready to retire.
Founders above the age of 35:
Many founders started their company very late. Here are some of the famous founders.
- Jack Ma: Surely, everyone would have heard about the famous e-commerce company that ships worldwide, Alibaba. Jack Ma founded this. Jack Ma had done many odd jobs in his 20s. He had even applied for a career in KFC and got rejected. Jack Ma initially touched a computer when he was 35. In 1999, he started Alibaba when he was 39 years old.
- Reed Hastings: Netflix(1) is one of the most popular movies and TV shows streaming platforms. But, do you think the founder got this idea in his 20s? Reed Hastings was the founder of Netflix. He used to rent DVDs to watch. One day, he was one day late in returning the DVD and got fined. This sparked up an idea. Hence, by the time he started Netflix, he was 38 years old.
A Final Note:
Age is just a number when it comes to following your passion. No one can stop you from starting your own company even when you are 60 years old. If people mention that entrepreneurs have to be young to start a company, it is essential not to follow your heart.