Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship
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Re: Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship
#2here is the full paper in case anyone is interested:
http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/jones-ben/htm/Ag...
Re: Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship
#3As I've gotten older (ironically) I've felt this should be the case; key decisions have such an impact on the success or failure of a startup, it's much more likely you make the right key decisions the more experience and wisdom you have.
Re: Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship
#4[deleted]
Re: Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship
#5This aligns with my observation and current impulse. I've been extremely hesitant to do my own startup- imposter syndrome maybe, but more likely healthy skepticism about the odds for success.
Now that I'm in my mid-40s I'd be much more comfortable taking on the task. Wide life experience, learning to interact with and observe human tendencies, and learning to overcome internal and external obstacles seems like fertile ground for business success.
Re: Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship
#64 of 5 of the biggest tech company founders were in their early 20s. So the biggest ideas clearly slanted towards young visionary founders, but the statistics do skew back towards older founders for all but the largest companies.
Re: Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship
#74 of 5 of the biggest tech company founders were in their early 20s. So the biggest ideas clearly slanted towards young visionary founders, but the statistics do skew back towards older founders for all but the largest companies.
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Re: Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship
#84 of 5 of the biggest tech company founders were in their early 20s. So the biggest ideas clearly slanted towards young visionary founders, but the statistics do skew back towards older founders for all but the largest companies.
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Re: Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship
#9I don't think this is surprising, but I'm also not surprised that VCs and accelerators still trend toward younger founders.
It makes sense to me that older (successful) founders likely leverage their own experience and network to a greater extent, but this isn't necessarily what seed stage investors are looking for. I think investors are more in the game of betting on people/teams, injecting their own experience and network as leverage. Older founders have less need, therefore less leverage- and older founders without these support networks are poorly positioned anyway.
Theres a big difference between running a successful small business and architecting a tech startup.
Re: Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship
#10One thing to note is that 'young college drop out makes billions' is a more compelling story than 'middle aged, well educated person with good savings makes billions'.
The former sells more clicks and hence advertising dollars - it conjures the notion that anyone can do it. The latter suggests at least a decade of work experience, probably an education and some money.
It's clear which story is going to end up trending on the news and the public's consciousness.