At 38, am I too old for a startup?

I've had an idea that's been eating me up for 18 months. What's your position on 'older' founders and startups?

as long as you feel you have the time/flexibility/energy/whatever to make it happen, you're not too old.

the standard difference is that younger people tend to have more flexibility in failure -- if they don't succeed they can still get a regular job and retire and live happily ever after. they don't have a family, a house, sometimes don't have a car, are comparatively more healthy, etc. its easier to live off of nothing, bootstrap themselves, and fail gracefully.

a prototypical older person has more responsibilities, has bills to pay, has a family to support, etc.. there's more of a need of a steady income stream. if you feel like you're in a situation to be able to follow your idea and still uphold your responsibilities, then go for it.

Kids are often inefficient and waste a lot of time just figuring stuff out and making mistakes. Use your experience to your benefit and just make sure your idea is something that you can do in the finite amount of time you might have available to yourself.

I'm 34 and starting a new company while in the process of leaving my previous one in capable hands.

Starting a company is saying to the world you are ready for a major change in your life. This is a big step, one that shouldn't be taken lightly, especially with a mortgage. But if your losing sleep over this idea at night, then it's one that might be necessary. Even if it's a complete failure, you would have succeeded in changing your life.

Cheers to that!

We've funded people older than that. In some types of startups it's the ideal age. E.g. if you want to build a factory or make enterprise software, or do something else that requires lots of capital and/or industry experience.

Age doesn't matter as long as you have a product, solves a problem, it's growing and profitable.