Is any other demography (age group) behind most start-ups launched in recent years?
Amidst all the awe-inspiring media attention to new high tech company founders, in their twenties; a latest research suggests that these young entrepreneurs are not the ones behind most enterprises. On contrary these bright Zukerbergs constitute only a small percentage of all startups. The demography which is behind most start-ups is much older.
According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, people over the age of 35 made up 80 percent of the total entrepreneurship activity in 2009. That same year, the Kauffman Foundation conducted a survey of 549 startups operating in "high-growth" industries -- including aerospace, defense, health care, and computer and electronics -- and found that people with age 55+ are nearly twice as likely to launch startups in these industries.
Factors which favor Higher Age wrt founding a start-up:
1) Older entrepreneurs have more life experience as well as work experience.
2) Most of the times Entrepreneurs with higher ages have many years and some times decades of industry expertise -- and a better understanding of what it truly takes to compete
, and succeed, in the business world.3) Company founders with higher age also have much broader and vaster networks. Even if an older entrepreneur is seeking to start a business in an entirely different industry, they have deep connections from all walks of life. And useful contacts and connections help, not only in general terms, like getting into team people with great experience and skill, but also in areas where credibility and recommendation become crucial, like getting contracts and credit. Here, those over 50 have acquired more wealth, a better credit history (which helps with securing loans), and are smarter with their finances.
The study finds that although growing older makes an entrepreneur, less likely to take risks, it also makes him/her take decisions based on serious research and better plan -- a virtue in times of the Great Recession.
Another factor which made older people more inclined towards founding companies is the fact that courtesy recession, many of them of them lost their jobs; and hence got the God send opportunity to get the time to launch the business they've been talking about for years. --------
No comments
Post a Comment