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Research: The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45

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Re: Research: The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45

#121

Post by mastazi »

ramblerman wrote: post #118
ttul wrote: post #4

I have been an entrepreneur for 17 years and am now “middle aged”. In my early years, I made many, many mistakes that could probably be pegged to youthful hubris. I also had no idea how to run a real business because I had scant experience even working for one let alone crafting anything approaching a “go to market plan”. If I were to start a new company today, I would probably lack the carefree creativity of a 23-ye…

Perhaps, but I would be careful to apply 'older execute better' as a general explanation for the study result. It's possible but selection bias could also be playing a huge role here. I can't imagine a more risky period to step out of a 'career' and become a founder than 45. So it's possible people making the leap at this age are a lot more certain about their chances of success before taking the plunge than younger…

> I can't imagine a more risky period to step out of a 'career' and become a founder than 45.

Why? What makes age 45 more risky than 40 or 50, or 35 or 60? Or are you just comparing "age bracket where people probably have a family" vs. "people probably too young to have a family"?

Re: Research: The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45

#122

Post by mastazi »

taneq wrote: post #67
bonestamp2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I met with a non-technical cofounder a few months ago who is in his early 20s. He had a great idea for a product and was looking for a technical co-founder (he also had an investor who already put up some money and he was already deeply involved in the sales channel and had two customers already sold). I have no doubt this product would very successful. Probably not a unicorn, but could make a few people quite wealth…

> ...non-technical cofounder [...] had a great idea for a product and was looking for a technical co-founder As an aside, maybe I just don't 'get it' or maybe I've just met bad examples but this scenario always reads to me like "guy wants someone to do the work for him so he can be the boss". Good ideas are cheap. Execution is the hard bit.

It seems you are assuming that execution is done mostly by technical co-founders. I would argue that many crucial aspects of what we categorise as "execution" are non-technical business aspects.

Re: Research: The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45

#123

Post by mastazi »

replicatorblog wrote: post #20

Who is the most famous tech founder who was 45 or older when they founded their first company? There were more in the 70s, 80s, or 90s (E.g. Jim Clark) because the industry was still forming, but even then the wunderkind college dropout drove most of the value creation. In the modern era, Peter Gassner, founder of Veeva was 42. Diane Greene founded VMWare at 43. Brian Acton was 38. You start falling into the 30s fair…

> Diane Greene founded VMWare at 43. Brian Acton was 38. You start falling into the 30s fairly quickly.

Besides VMWare, some tech companies with over-40 founders are Adobe, Craigslist, Zynga, Xiaomi, Netscape, Akamai, SanDisk, McAfee, Seagate, the list goes on (you can find even more examples in a comment by user "adventured" in this same thread [1]).

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18213942

Re: Research: The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45

#124

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

conductr wrote: post #61
opportune wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Non-technical cofounder in early 20s” sounds like a massive red flag to me. Ideas are cheap, execution is what matters

This is common sentiment but I disagree. As a tech person, I’d much rather partner with a non-tech person already selling and raising funds. Sounds like a winning combo but the parent just didn’t want to go on the path this specific person was heading down.

To be fair, "non technical co-founder" could mean anything from GP's pretty great sounding example to "I have an idea for the next Facebook, if you build it for free I'll give you 10%".

Re: Research: The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45

#125

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

taneq wrote: post #67
bonestamp2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I met with a non-technical cofounder a few months ago who is in his early 20s. He had a great idea for a product and was looking for a technical co-founder (he also had an investor who already put up some money and he was already deeply involved in the sales channel and had two customers already sold). I have no doubt this product would very successful. Probably not a unicorn, but could make a few people quite wealth…

> ...non-technical cofounder [...] had a great idea for a product and was looking for a technical co-founder As an aside, maybe I just don't 'get it' or maybe I've just met bad examples but this scenario always reads to me like "guy wants someone to do the work for him so he can be the boss". Good ideas are cheap. Execution is the hard bit.

"Execution" also includes selling the product and securing funding. A good non-technical co-founder handles all of this side of things so the technical guy can get on and write the code.

Re: Research: The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45

#127

Post by antirez »

georgewsinger wrote: post #84

These studies often ignore the power law. The vast majority of value generated in tech is powered by a tiny number of companies. Here are the five most valuable tech companies as of 2017 vs. the age of the founders: 1. Apple: $570.7B explained - Jobs: 21 - Woz: 26 2. Alphabet: $560B - Larry/Sergey: 25ish 3. Microsoft: $434B - Gates: 19 - Allen: 22 4. Amazon: $365B - Bezos: 29 5. Facebook: $354B - Zuckerberg: 19

The first incarnation of Apple is hardly the same Apple that the mature Jobs basically re-created from scratch with a different line of products.

Re: Research: The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45

#128

Post by camelite »

georgewsinger wrote: post #84

These studies often ignore the power law. The vast majority of value generated in tech is powered by a tiny number of companies. Here are the five most valuable tech companies as of 2017 vs. the age of the founders: 1. Apple: $570.7B explained - Jobs: 21 - Woz: 26 2. Alphabet: $560B - Larry/Sergey: 25ish 3. Microsoft: $434B - Gates: 19 - Allen: 22 4. Amazon: $365B - Bezos: 29 5. Facebook: $354B - Zuckerberg: 19

Jobs was 49 when iPhone development began.

Re: Research: The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45

#129

Post by fouc »

opportune wrote: post #46
bonestamp2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I met with a non-technical cofounder a few months ago who is in his early 20s. He had a great idea for a product and was looking for a technical co-founder (he also had an investor who already put up some money and he was already deeply involved in the sales channel and had two customers already sold). I have no doubt this product would very successful. Probably not a unicorn, but could make a few people quite wealth…

“Non-technical cofounder in early 20s” sounds like a massive red flag to me. Ideas are cheap, execution is what matters

Execution is what matters. Execution has nothing to do with technical skills however.

If you're already bringing the technical skills, you probably want to partner with someone that has the skills you lack. In particular you'd probably want business development skills, but you'd also want them to be able to jump in and get involved with designs/mockups so you can focus on the technical side.

Re: Research: The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45

#130

Post by auganov »

Swizec wrote: post #97
brianwawok wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure it ignores it. For someone who is 18 and very creative, the facts you posted could be helpful to say that they have a chance to be insane lucky if they have the aprox 1 in a billion set of skills and timing required to make it to market. On the other hand, the stats in the article point out that for someone in their 30s or 40s, they have 1/(10? 50?) chance to be able to found a successful startup, for s…

Lady Gaga worked hard and got rich and famous. But you’re probably not Lady Gaga. It’s funny that we understand this hit-based reality for music, tv, movie, and sports stars, but can’t seem to grasp it when it comes to startups.

Going the other way around is interesting too. If you look at how early many of them started working hard it doesn't quite seem as random. Say, Taylor Swift, by the time she was 12 or 13 it was pretty apparent she was dead set on making it in the music industry. And no, she didn't hit it right-off, did plenty of not-so-notable work for a while.
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