Why later in life entrepreneurs are better than younger Ones

Yes, we all know about Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg – they are often held up as three of the biggest role models for entrepreneurs. They are all famous for starting their companies in their early 20s and in many ways set the benchmark for what the image of a successful entrepreneur looks like.

Young entrepreneurs may have some advantages. They are often native users of the most modern technology, are more flexible, do not have family commitments and so on.

And yet, there are plenty of reasons to believe that older entrepreneurs are actually far more successful than younger ones. A recent study involving MIT and the National Bureau of Economic Research in the US clearly shows that middle-aged entrepreneurs are far more successful than younger ones.

The study also showed that entrepreneurs who are under 25 tend to perform poorly. The rate of success as an entrepreneur starts to increase slowly for people aged between 25 and 35 and rises again for those in the 35-45 age range. But the real jump in the success rate of entrepreneurs comes from the age of 46 and remains steady through to 65.

Now, I’m not advocating we ignore innovation and entrepreneurship for those under 25 (I’ve spent half my professional life advocating and working with this cohort!). We should encourage this age group to be able to explore innovation and entrepreneurship and the skills needed to excel in these areas. But let’s also be realistic – exposure to what’s involved in entrepreneurship, competitions, guest speakers etc are all fine and generate a level of excitement, but let’s keep our feet grounded. Expectations of “results” in terms of new viable businesses created from this age group, particularly that are likely to be high growth, need to be kept at a realistically low level.

Meanwhile, there are other age groups that we’ve overlooked and disregarded. Yes, there have been intermittent initiatives championing other specific entrepreneurship programmes involving women, energy, environment, sustainable this/sustainable that – typically, all good political areas to endorse.

But, policy makers and sponsors, look at the evidence and strive for some sort of balance. Those 50+ are far more successful in starting new businesses for the first time than those who are younger. Supporting this 50+ cohort will achieve much better results – it may not be a high flyer in political terms, but it will get much better bang for the innovation dollar – yet, not a single dollar is allocated to entrepreneurship for later in life entrepreneurs who wish to start a business for the first time. It’s time for this to change.

Let’s relook at where we invest our innovation dollars!