The 20-year-old entrepreneur is a myth, according to study

I don't see the raw data of the study but I can think of one reason why it contradicts the public perception of the 20-something founder: There's a difference between B2B/SaaS/enterprise startups vs B2C startups.

The B2B companies are often started by older folks in their 30s and 40s. (E.g. PeopleSoft human resources software started by David Duffield age 46 and Siebel CRM software started by Tom Siebel age 41. Both were acquired by Oracle.) Their accumulated years in the industry gives them the relationships to convert into their first enterprise customers. Even more fundamentally, a B2B startup solves a "paint point" for corporate customers. Therefore, it makes sense that the founders would have spent many years working for companies (as employees in their 20s and 30s) to intimately understand how to solve their problem. Being a 40-something founder is the natural timeline for all that to happen.

However, many prominent B2C companies are started by 20-somethings (e.g. Google (age 25), Facebook (age 19), Snapchat (age 21), Instagram (age 27). The top-100 consumer-facing iOS & Android apps on their app stores are probably done by younger founders. It's hard to think of consumer-facing internet companies that were started by 40-somethings. (Netscape in 1995 with 50-year-old Jim Clark would be an uncommon example.) The B2C world doesn't require existing industry relationships; it's the viral spread of software to create network effects rather than a 6-month sales cycle of B2B.

It's the B2C companies that get more coverage on WSJ, Bloomberg news, and even tech sites like HN. Readers will click on more stories with "Snapchat" (B2C) in the title rather than "Palantir" (B2B). Therefore, it seems like the startup world is skewed towards 20-somethings.

Jobs basically reinvented Apple when he came back. The "power law" company that you're talking about was created by a person in his 40s. Before that it was a has-been that had to be bailed out by its biggest competitor.

Leaving that aside, can give any more detail as to why you think power law companies matter and "average" companies don't? There's a lot of "average" companies out there that are making tidy profits for lots of folks.

i always enjoy reading these articles, because others like myself who have had their startups acquired at a young age are beating the stigma.

but i feel as though in this day of age there’s so many “companies” who claim to be “startups.” sure, they may have the experience, just not the capital.. and with that it completely changes everything.

anyways i’m 21 and had a “startup” (an app) acquired at 18. now back in school, i can understand the articles perspective. i’m only 21 and i feel like i only really have 10% of the knowledge, compared to someone who is 40 and who has so much more experience then me.

If I was going to sum-up this comment, it'd be something like "Sell what you know."

The viral growth of companies started by 20-something founders is fueled by 20-something consumers.

The growth of companies started by 40-something founders is fueled by businesses with 40-something managers/executives.

I'd suggest finding a co-founder. This can be difficult depending on where you live. Go to a meetup and talk about your idea. Find someone who gets jazzed about it and ask them to come on board. Give them some tasks to do to prove they're serious. When they disappear and don't do them, go back to solo founding satisfied you wasted your time on comment advice from an anonymous stranger on HN.