Average age of an entrepreneur

I can’t remember if I said that already but I was talking to Kevin Brown (very experienced and successful entrepreneur) about some business ideas and the willingness to start something and all that good stuff and he replied that there is a lot about timing in entrepreneurship. Throwing yourself and start a business just because you want it is not the best recipe for success. He told me then, that I had time, and I could try to really know an industry and really build my network, and then, when I have those assets, I could jump into building a company. The support by VCs would be much better. He told my that the average entrepreneur starts at around 40, which completely surprised me.

Well today, we have hard data: http://www.kauffman.org/uploadedFiles/the-coming-entrepreneurial-boom.pdf

The biggest group of entrepreneurs start between 55 and 64!!! while the lowest is the 20-34.. The average in Tech company is 39 (Kevin was right). But what about Google, Facebook and all those good stuff? Well, as I said before, this is a very distorted view of entpreneurship and startup success. The vast majority of sucesses are not that known. How many actors become Bruce Willis? well, how many startups become Facebook? One or two!! in the whole world!! They should be a model because they are not. They are the exception that nobody can anticipate (even Zuckerberg didn’t..). But there is a lot of good startups and good companies that work because they answer a true need for their customers in a market where the founder really knows his/her industry.

My point is: Patience. Let’s build some good skills, let’s know an industry, in which you will like to spend thousands of hours, day and night, and let’s make a successful business.

The only thing missing is the success rate by age group, but the hard part is how do you define success? Do you feel that you have to have sold your company for many multiples to be successful, or is it that you can have a good life, balancing good income, and family life.. Both are possible and both are successes in the the eye of the person who chose the path.