The Perfect Age To Start A Business

“What’s the perfect age to start a business?”  It’s a question we get asked time and again and in truth there is no right or wrong answer.  There is no one size fits all and there is no best time or worst time to start a business it seems.

However from our personal experience and backed up by what we read and see from research there does seem to be a consensus of opinion on the perfect age to start a business and it’s in favour of the more mature 🙂

Clearly we’re not the only ones who say this as revealed in a recent article in The Guardian (we’ll give you a link to that at the end of this post so you can read it in full)

Their research actually reveals that 40 may be the magic number despite all the media speculation about the entrepreneurial spirit of the younger generation (that’s our hobby horse too!).  According to Sandler Training, the average age of an entrepreneur in the UK is 47 (46 for men and 48 for women)  US research puts that figure at 40 being the average age to start your first business.

If you think about it, starting a business / becoming an entrepreneur in your forties it makes a lot of sense.  In your twenties you have a lack of experience and probably a degree of career uncertainty (we know we went through that with two of our five children).  Then you look at people in their thirties (that’s our other three) and that’s the time where they are into mortgages and children or just enjoying a more independent life and enjoying their lifestyle spending their money!  Those in their forties however have the perfect storm. They have a degree of financial security and business experience and it’s pretty much the perfect age to start a business

Reading the article in The Guardian and hearing from successful entrepreneurs (whose stories you can read) its clear that experience, clearer perspective on life and resources (money) means your forties are a great time to start a business.  Plus of course they have likely made and learned from their mistakes along their life path and of course built great networks.

If we look at ourselves (we’re now in our sixties) we concur that the forties is probably the perfect age to start a business and we wish that we had taken that route instead of leaving it until our mid fifties.  That being said, we are passionate about what we do, have a good industry reputation and a strong network of contacts, know the value of building relationships (plus we know what we’re good at and what we’re not good at – we can outsource that) so even at 60 we fit the criteria and after all you’re as young as you feel 🙂

Having had a traditional management consultancy business and been self employed for the most part of our working lives changing to a more lifestyle based business by switching to having an online business made huge sense to us and now more than ever we’re pleased we made that decision. Perhaps that’s a good option for you?

So for you in answer to the question “What’s The Perfect Age To Start A Business?” it’s really up to you …. you’re as old as you feel – we know entrepreneurs who are in their eighties and if they can do it then we’re sure you can!

Source : The Guardian- The Fabulous Forties – The Perfect Age To Start A Business

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