The Experienced Entrepreneur

Photo by Ronan Furuta on Unsplash

So what’s the average age of successful entrepreneurs in the US? Not just entrepreneurs in general, but the founders at the fastest growing new ventures?

45.

That’s right. The average successful, high growth entrepreneur is, at founding, far older than conventional wisdom and the mainstream media would have us believe. 

Our news streams are awash with stories of college dropouts, teenagers and barely twenty-somethings who were super-smart, took risks and launched multi-billion dollar companies that changed the world. And we’re led to believe that anyone older than that is “too old”, too “out of it”, too “burdened with baggage” to be of value to such organizations.

The facts simply don’t support that.

Last year, a team of economists published a study in the American Economic Review on just this topic. And they don’t just look at your average start up, they looked at the 1 in 1000 fastest growing firms, including considerations of high-technology sectors, entrepreneurial hubs, and successful firm exits.

In others words, experience delivers material, game changing value. That it isn’t just about raw smarts, or the ability to take risks (both of which are important). 

What’s also important is having a network, understanding the domain, possessing deep skills in specific areas (the ability to sell, for example) and more. That is, any number of skills that tend to improve with age and experience. 

It’s important to understand this as we tend to accept the idea that entrepreneurial ambition should lessen with age, that as we get older, we should put away quaint old notions of ‘doing our own thing’. 

That’s true - if you want it to be.

The truth - and the data - tell us that our choices are actually up to us. That it’s down to our ideas and what we bring to the table. That our age and experience are not impediments, that, instead, they can be accelerants.  

Where are you in this mix? 

Maybe it’s time to get to work.