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0 pointsdangrossman13y ago0 comments

Your guess is well-supported by facts.

> The average age of first-time entrepreneurs in all industries is 43; in tech industries, the average age is 39. Only 16 percent of the fastest-growing and most successful companies in the United States had venture investors. 11 percent had revenues of more than a million dollars.

http://www.kauffman.org/uploadedFiles/FactSheet/EntreAndEcon...

According to the US census bureau, about half a million new firms are established each year (where a new firm is defined as having at least 1 employee on payroll, so this doesn't count everyone starting a website in their spare time). 16%, 11%, these are of big numbers, bigger than the couple dozen companies you might read about on TechCrunch each year.

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w1ntermute13y ago· 2 in thread

> The average age of first-time entrepreneurs in all industries is 43; in tech industries, the average age is 39.

This obviously doesn't mention how successful those older entrepreneurs go on to be.

I'd like to know if there is a significant difference in the success rates of tech companies started by 18 year olds and 28 year olds. Does it actually make empirical sense to start a company when you're 18, or do those 10 years of working drastically improve your chances such that you should hold off?

doorhammer13y ago

I'd be totally interested in (being spoonfed) research on that, just out of interest.

I think my bumper-sticker take away, though, would be "it's never too early to try and it's never to late to get started."

aagha13y ago

I remember reading a free years ago--I can't remember the source--that older entrepreneurs were, on average, more successful than younger ones.

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