Hell, I'm 62, and I just started a project which may well turn into a startup in the foreseeable future. Go for it!
WTF? Why did this get upmodded?
LMAOOL at the modding for parent and grandparent, both by me!
At 38, am I too old for a startup?
41–50 of 91 posts
Re: At 38, am I too old for a startup?
#42Do you have kids? Family? Mortgage? Are you going to help your kids pay for college? What about parents? Do you have to help them out at all? Will you be able to purchase affordable health insurance?
Re: At 38, am I too old for a startup?
#43I'm 44 and I just started on my fourth.
Re: At 38, am I too old for a startup?
#44You're probably too old to quit your job, live in a one bedroom apartment with two other dudes, and eat Ramen for six months. But you're probably not too old to start something as a side project with your friends and see if it goes somewhere.
Heh, probably true. :) I keep hearing about this Ramen stuff here on HN - I think I missed out!
You most certainly did not miss out.
Re: At 38, am I too old for a startup?
#45At 39 I work in a startup. I would say that mid-thirties is probably the ideal age to get involved with a startup. Both the founders for which I work are also 'mid thirties'. At that age you probably have enough experience to be at a great advantage over people in their 20s.
Good luck!
Re: At 38, am I too old for a startup?
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Part of the problem may be that the article is a pdf, and you have to create an account to read it.
I didn't need an account to read it. A direct link is here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1127877_code...
Oops... my cookies were messed up; I managed to download the article. I note, though, that the link you provided isn't a direct link. They must be checking referrer to discourage direct links... Annoying!
Re: At 38, am I too old for a startup?
#47No, 38 is not too young. Sure, you'll get better as you get older, but there's no reason not to start now. If it's a software startup, you'll want a good codebase in place now before your kids get old enough to hack on it.
P.S. You put "am I too old" in the title. You might be able to get one of the moderators to fix that typo.
Re: At 38, am I too old for a startup?
#48if you are asking the question, then you probably are not in a good position. but it has nothing to do with being 38
Re: At 38, am I too old for a startup?
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I agree that experience can be a benefit in many industries (and I'm 33, have been working around my current industry for about 10 years, and I think that's been a big benefit to my current startup), I also think naivety can be a far more powerful defense than your comment would indicate. Not knowing about the old boy networks and the "way things are done" can be a benefit to a small and nimble startup. The fac…
I wonder if older founders could hack that problem by starting up in an area outside their expertise.
A combination of older founders from this field mixed with idealistic kids outside the field could probably do very well.
Re: At 38, am I too old for a startup?
#50Do you have kids? Family? Mortgage? Are you going to help your kids pay for college? What about parents? Do you have to help them out at all? Will you be able to purchase affordable health insurance?
These are the right questions. People often pose the question as a matter of age, which is almost certainly not the determining factor. I will concede that there may be some loss of endurance with age that makes the startup thing harder.
I suspect that the OP just wants a bit of reassurance that he's not too old for this. Of course he's not. 38 isn't too old at all.
I'm 36, and I wouldn't try to start a startup right now. But that's mainly because I have, as you said, a pregnant wife, a three year old, and a mortgage. However, I know a few people who aren't even deterred by those things and do work for startups. I even know a founder in that situation. He is excruciatingly busy, though, and I know that it does take a toll on his personal life.
By the way, I think that working for startups and founding a startup are often completely different things. In the tech heavy bay area, I don't think that a talented programmer assumes all that much risk by joining a well funded startup, because if things head south they can often get a well paid new job within a month or two. Furthermore, "stable" jobs often aren't as stable as they seem - especially if they allow you to let your skills get rusty.
So personally, I think that working for a small startup that pays decently and gives you some nice equity isn't all that bad an idea. However, you won't (and probably shouldn't) get anywhere near the kind of equity that the folks who ate ramen and crammed into a 2br apartment for 18 months get. Instead, think of it as an exciting job with a nice potential upside (I know a few parents who scored that nice upside).