Obviously, Arrington's article was just a fluff piece. 30 is not over the hill. 25 is also definitely not peaking. It is true that a 25 year old is more willing to take a risk on a startup than a 30+ year old (which I have learned first hand), but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It's all about the person. I'm 27 and am about to take a huge risk with a startup. Maybe i'm still in the "peak age" but I don't think at 30 I would think any differently. It's all about passion.
It's not consumer internet but I always look at how Colonel Sanders made his mark after he turned 65 as inspiration for the future: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonel_Sanders
If you're <a thing> who has bought into some blogger saying you aren't cut out to be an entrepreneur because of <aforementioned thing>, then maybe you aren't cut out to be an entrepreneur.
One of the very best things about being an entrepreneur is that you get to ignore what everyone else thinks qualifies or disqualifies you. The only thing that matters is what you make (or more accurately, what you do with what you make).
I used to be able to walk/catch bus/ride lots of places. Now I have a kid it's no longer possible, and things like school drop-offs double my commuting distance.
I'm just about to hit 30 and taking more entrepreneurial risks. I feel like the knowledge I've gained in the business world is immensely helpful.
In general, it seems that the older you get, the opportunity costs for risks increase. Not just monetarily speaking but also other things you may have to cut back on - family, friends, etc.
i'm in the same boat and struggling with the same issues. on the verge of 30 it becomes more of a game of weighing the pros and cons.
does this startup idea have enough potential that it's worth leaving my full time job? and if so, how am i going to keep paying these damn student loans? etc.
When someone says that he will only fund or work with people in their 20s, run. He's looking for a young, inexperienced person who doesn't know his rights and of whom he can take advantage.
Where there is some truth in this is that a 30-year-old first-time entrepreneur usually cannot get terms from a VC that would merit leaving a more stable job. A person of that age with a decent career is unlikely to have much interest in the terms (participating preferred, easy to fire the founders, giving up a lot of board seats, low salary) available to a no-name first-time entrepreneur. If someone who is 35 is willing to take a 3x-liquidation preference and participating preferred, do you really want to fund him? Obviously no, because he either lacks decent options or doesn't understand business, neither of which is a good sign for someone of that age. On the other hand, there are plenty of 22-year-olds with a lot of talent but no sense of what they're worth or what rights they have.
Considering that it takes 7+ years to build a substantial, successful company, if you found a startup when you're 25 and take 7 years to exit, you WILL be > 30 when you're done and available to work on startup #2.
So by this "under 30 only" logic, you would never fund successful serial entrepreneurs. Great idea. :-/
I'm a 31 year old entrepreneur. Here are my rough living costs. I've done them on a personal basis. The household costs (including my wife) are double this. I'm not saying I'm typical, but I am saying that it doesnt need to be as expensive as the article claims.
Rent/Mortgage/Prop Tax: $765 (single family home in SF, including office)
Utilities: $80 (fast Internet)
Insurance (car, home): $60 (free health plan through wife)
Transportation: $10 (bike)
Gas: $50
Food: $150
Fun: $200
Clothing: $50 (and it shows..)
Grand Total: $1365
Yup, but bear in mind that's between two people ($1300 per month), and after tax break (so looks like $2000 on paper, but is actually only $1300 out of pocket). It's on a 3.75% rate (7 year), and excludes principle repayment (which is not a cost). Includes property tax. So it's very comparable to rent.
No, he's only counting interest on the loan, and his wife is paying half. It's not even remotely a fair comparison to a single founder living in the city.
A more realistic "cheap" lifestyle in SF is probably $2500 a month if you're living on your own. And renting is substantially cheaper than owning here, unless you play stupid accounting games to pretend that you're not actually spending money.
What games would those be? What I did was: a) exclude principal repayments (they are not a cost, they are an investment. They are also entirely optional - any house buyer can take an interest only mortgage). b) factor in the tax advantage (which is actual money in my pocket, either by paying less withholding, or by getting a check from the IRS at the end of the year).
While principle repayment is not a cost, it's a cash flow, so you can't exclude it when you're trying to figure out if you can cover your monthly nut. Similarly, you can't include the present value of expected future income from the sale of the business into your current estimate of what expenses you can cover.
Principle repayment is optional (when taking a loan). It only makes a small difference to interest rate [1]. So for the purposes of discussing cost minimization, it is legitimate to exclude it.
This actually pretty accurate for manhattan. Though you've missed some biggies: health insurance ($300) and iphone: $110 and hosting,netflix (they addup) etc.
And the biggest expense in manhattan is :
taking dates out for dinner ($50 a pop usually so about $300 a month) + drinking and hanging with friends ($300 a month easily).
Damn Dude. You cost double what I do in the same city. I live in a nice-sized apt in Manhattan, eat well, and go out.
- Get a roommate and cut out nearly half the rent and half the utilities (two bedrooms aren't much more in a walk up).
- You're clearly eating almost all your meals out. You could probably cut this by 2/3 if you went to a Trader Joes and ate 3/4 of your meals at home or made lunch.
- Cut out the maid. Buy a nice vacuum and some cleaning supplies.
New Total: $1,950. Just saved you $19k next year.
Pro-tip: Take dates to Thai restaurants in Manhattan. Many have great ambience and you'll spend ~$30 with a drink each.
Super Pro-tip: The girls you want to date in the long run will be happy to pay their share. :-)
I don't think it's about money as much as lifestyle -- the OP misses this entirely by assuming that both entrepreneurs are single and without children.
Something interesting I observed at Startup Weekend here in Indy last fall:
When it came time to form teams, all the young'uns grouped with one another, and the four of us codgers with responsibilities worked together. The line wasn't drawn according to age: there was one 30+ guy in another group, but he was single; two of the four members of my group were still in our 20's, but we were the primary sources of income for families with children, and I think that led us to fit in better with our 40+ cofounders.
With a few exceptions, I'd find it uncomfortable -- if not unworkable -- cofounding with the bouncy 20-something who has no outside responsibilities. When team building means getting drunk together on a Wednesday night, work hours are noon-8pm, and the company culture is low on planning and high on "nothing to lose", a company is just not going to be a good fit for me.
I'm fine with economic sacrifice, and with working hard. Because I'm looking for a new startup to join, I've tooled down my living expenses such that I could do an extended period somewhere between the two guys in that article. Because I've always been a hard worker, I've made my work schedule part of my family's life: I work a normal 9-3:30 in the office (currently home office, but I'm flexible), then after school, my son brings his homework to my office and we do our work together for a couple of hours. I tend to get in another hour or two in the evenings after he goes to sleep. I never get drunk, let alone on a weeknight when I have to get a first grader up for school in the morning. I'll never end up in an incubator because I'm not changing my son's school, leaving his speech therapy program, leaving our dojo, and generally up-ending his whole world in exchange for a few months of help for my startup.
I often meet people at my stage in life (kids, responsibilities, etc.) who say they don't do start-ups because they perceive "bouncy without responsibilities" to be the expectation of all startups. Their loss. I have to look a little harder, but I find other "codgers" out there in the entrepreneur community. I have to wonder if the people held back by the stereotype really have whatever that spark is that makes us take risks on new things anyway.
Something where I get to solve interesting problems.
The perfect start-up for me looks a lot like this:
* I get to keep my family in Indianapolis (and actually spend time with
them).
* I need to analyze problems and create solutions -- not just code things
on a checklist that we all know how to do.
* I make enough to get by, and have a tangible stake in the company.
* I get to work with top-notch people whose talents compliment my own.
* I'm making something I'm proud to show off.
* The corporate culture is very hacker-ish, by which I mean that we
subscribe to "best idea first" and are passionate about solving
real-world problems.
You'll note that I haven't said anything about preferring b2c or b2b, or what kind of products I like to build. Throughout my life I've been a security geek, a systems coder, a web developer, and worn a few other hats besides -- I'm something of an algorithm and language design geek, so my skills translate very well from one domain to another. I just want to work with talented people, use my talents to the fullest, and build something I'm proud of.
I think he covered that in his(her) last paragraph where he intentionally left out the kinds of products and therefore the kinds of customers to chase.
I didn't read it as a selfish list of needs with no regard for the team or the customer. In fact, I thought it was refreshing. It seems like he has a good grasp on the kind of team he wants to be a part of and what he can contribute. I would be more inclined to hire someone like that for my team than someone who wasn't that self-aware.
That's where solving real-world problems and building something I'm proud of come in -- without knowing what the startup's customer will be like, how could I possibly be more specific?
I think the TL;DR (and it's very true in my experience) is that having cofounders at different lifestages is an extra challenge.
What could be a perfectly fine Ramen profitable company for 3 20-year olds would be a financial disaster for a couple of 40-year olds.
Success isn't always about growing fast or shutting down. Sometimes's it's just about being good enough for long enough to hang on until good things happen... and mixed-age founders have different abilities to hang on in that situation.
There are significantly more "non-traditional" families today than there were 50 years ago and assuming that older entrepreneurs had to be in the same kind of traditional situation (married, kids, house in the suburbs) isn't much better than assuming only young people can start companies.
There are dual income, no kids couples, there's divorced people, there's never been married people.
It would be great if everyone stops assuming that everyone else is the same as you.
> It would be great if everyone stops assuming that everyone else is the same as you.
This seems unnecessarily snarky. OP didn't say "all > 30 year olds have these issues", he was talking about his own experience and how it shapes his startup aspirations.
I agree that I was overly snarky, though only slightly. I disagree that Kids & Mortgage is still very common. Maybe just common, and even then, there's often additional nuance (second marriage, renting not mortgage, etc.)
I would argue that this "over the hill by 30" mentality permeates a lot of things in our culture. I know I hear it a lot in the sports I am involved in (climbing, backpacking, etc.)
Yet there are at least 1-2 guys well past 30 (likely in their 50's) at the climbing gym I go to that could out climb most of us twenty-somethings. There are also a healthy number of successful entrepreneurs well past 30.
I would posit that more than anything, being "over the hill" is a frame of mind.
The younger crowd is also more impressionable than the older crowd. Older investors I bet <3 to play sage and school the youngins' and the first step to get them to listen is to compliment them. lol
30/40 year old entrepreneur is more likely to be married or in a stable relationship; fun is Netflix ($5 a month) or streaming movies (free). Use wife's health insurance. $400 a month on transportation, really? Anyone with a wife/gf knows they don't travel that much anymore. No reason for utilities to be higher either. Food is way lower, older people are more likely to cook their own and make smarter supermarket choices. Being older and boring is very cheap.
If working from home eg programming, having your own place can mean that you sleep better and are more focused on doing the work, rather than being distracted by whose turn it is to do the dishes or joining in your roommates' post-bar parties.
Of course, having kids or being a caregiver would change the person's profile, regardless of age. Just a few counter-thoughts.
Two advantages that older entrepreneurs have is domain expertise and industry connections. For example, I know some people who started companies that contract out to the US government and make a killing doing it. I don't think an under-25 entrepreneur would be too successful doing that unless they're well connected (involves writing proposals, which most 20-somethings aren't going to be good at) .
My observation is that most young entrepreneurs stick to building consumer internet products that don't require a lot of domain expertise.
Also not considering the 30 somethings (such as myself) who spent a few years working for companies in order to save up and get some experience BEFORE taking the "plunge". Now I have a great portfolio, some cash and some experience that can all help me work towards this kind of goal. Doesn't necessarily put me a head of a new grad but surely doesn't put me behind either!
I cannot be bothered, in the 14th hour of my workday, to find the reference on the internet but the last time I heard anything the average age was thirty six.
The average VC victim is in their twenties, sure, because they have no capital.
Not everyone over 30 has a wife, kids, 2 cars, is in debt up to their eyeballs, and lives downtown San Francisco.
I'm over 30, single, own a home, and am bootstrapping a software/consulting business. Between income from my business, savings, and profits in the stock market (I day trade on the side) I have almost unlimited runway. I don't have to pander to investors and I have the time to really sink my teeth into some hard problems. The crazy thing is when I do the math at the end of the year, I'm not even that far behind where I'd be if I had a day job and I'm still just getting started. What risk?
I am in basically the same situation: Over 30, single, own a home, bootstrapping a business. I have steady and flexible part time consulting work I can use to pay the bills if I need to, but rarely do. I have 2 room-mates I share my house with that pay 100% of the mortgage and a large chunk of utilities. I have practically 0 debt (other than the house). I have worked at several startups already, and know better than many first-timers what is involved. If anything I believe I am better off starting a company than a young 22 year old.
One important difference though: Like another commenter said, I am not as eager to accept any investor terms thrown my way, nor am I gauging my success on investor interest. I am in this to make a profitable, successful business venture, and will only accept investment on good terms when it will directly aid in the growth of my company. Perhaps that is why VCs might avoid older entrepreneurs, we are more cautious of investment deals, and don't judge success by those alone.
If one actually reads 'Zen Mind: Beginner's Mind' it should be abundantly clear that enlightenment can come to anyone at any age. That said the primary reason why the 30 year old is not over the hill is that he or she can still see the 60 year old just short of the summit (and neither can see that there are an endless number of summits to come...)
His "data-driven" numbers are misinformed because they're raw. They just look at how many 20-year-olds started a company and took it to success vs. how many 30-year-olds did the same - just raw numbers.
They don't look at the percentage of 30+ people who succeed out of the total in their age group who attempted a technology-startup vs. the same for those in their 20s; and if the difference is statistically significant. If he tells me that 20% of people in their 20s succeed and only 5% in their 30s succeed then he'd have a point, I bet he does not.
At 28.8 I am a better decision maker. I have better life skills, I am better at making friends, making social connections and making business connections.
As a coder, I no longer like coding for the sake of coding. I like coding because it is a means to an end. My powers of abstraction are greater. After 2 years of moderately successful solopreneurship, I fully understand the absolute need to ally with other people.
I am able to cut through people's bullshit easier. When I meet a potential business parter/coder I am more quickly able to see exactly how strong they are, what kind of drive they have, and ultimately I am more quick (and confident) to tell them to fuck off if they are a liability. As a 20-25 year old, I had no confidence and could not speak up for myself.
I focus solely on projects that I enjoy with people that I enjoy working with. My ability to create potentials for happiness and avoid pitfalls is stronger than ever. Physically, I am stronger than ever, and I eat much much healthier.
I am more positioned than ever before to hit a project out of the ballpark.
Finally, at 28.8 I realize that my ageism is just another prejudice that was hindering my ability to take advice. Now, my mind is not closed. It is more open than ever before. Age has worked well for me, and young peers, it will work well for you too.
One thing missed by this article - the house price boom over the last few years means that people who bought before the boom should have much lower outgoings for housing. A 30-something with much of their house paid off is in that respect in a better position to take risks than a 20-something paying rent and perhaps wondering if they ought to save for the downpayment/deposit on a house purchase.
Another issue is that learning how to cook healthy food quickly and cheaply can take years to learn and your food costs can diminish with age.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 139 ms ] threadIt's not consumer internet but I always look at how Colonel Sanders made his mark after he turned 65 as inspiration for the future: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonel_Sanders
One of the very best things about being an entrepreneur is that you get to ignore what everyone else thinks qualifies or disqualifies you. The only thing that matters is what you make (or more accurately, what you do with what you make).
I used to be able to walk/catch bus/ride lots of places. Now I have a kid it's no longer possible, and things like school drop-offs double my commuting distance.
In general, it seems that the older you get, the opportunity costs for risks increase. Not just monetarily speaking but also other things you may have to cut back on - family, friends, etc.
does this startup idea have enough potential that it's worth leaving my full time job? and if so, how am i going to keep paying these damn student loans? etc.
Your remember that 30th birthday. I bet turning 40 is going to be much much worse.
Where there is some truth in this is that a 30-year-old first-time entrepreneur usually cannot get terms from a VC that would merit leaving a more stable job. A person of that age with a decent career is unlikely to have much interest in the terms (participating preferred, easy to fire the founders, giving up a lot of board seats, low salary) available to a no-name first-time entrepreneur. If someone who is 35 is willing to take a 3x-liquidation preference and participating preferred, do you really want to fund him? Obviously no, because he either lacks decent options or doesn't understand business, neither of which is a good sign for someone of that age. On the other hand, there are plenty of 22-year-olds with a lot of talent but no sense of what they're worth or what rights they have.
So by this "under 30 only" logic, you would never fund successful serial entrepreneurs. Great idea. :-/
A more realistic "cheap" lifestyle in SF is probably $2500 a month if you're living on your own. And renting is substantially cheaper than owning here, unless you play stupid accounting games to pretend that you're not actually spending money.
What games would those be? What I did was: a) exclude principal repayments (they are not a cost, they are an investment. They are also entirely optional - any house buyer can take an interest only mortgage). b) factor in the tax advantage (which is actual money in my pocket, either by paying less withholding, or by getting a check from the IRS at the end of the year).
[1] http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/banking_lending/mortgage...
Principal is the subject of a loan, or the leader of a school. Principle is an idea that people may hew to and argue about.
Oh, and I'm 32.
And the biggest expense in manhattan is : taking dates out for dinner ($50 a pop usually so about $300 a month) + drinking and hanging with friends ($300 a month easily).
- Get a roommate and cut out nearly half the rent and half the utilities (two bedrooms aren't much more in a walk up).
- You're clearly eating almost all your meals out. You could probably cut this by 2/3 if you went to a Trader Joes and ate 3/4 of your meals at home or made lunch.
- Cut out the maid. Buy a nice vacuum and some cleaning supplies.
New Total: $1,950. Just saved you $19k next year.
Pro-tip: Take dates to Thai restaurants in Manhattan. Many have great ambience and you'll spend ~$30 with a drink each.
Super Pro-tip: The girls you want to date in the long run will be happy to pay their share. :-)
Mostly I want to dispel the idea that New York is prohibitively expensive for startups. It's not if you're resourceful.
My email is railsnoob at yahoo dot com.
Thanks.
Something interesting I observed at Startup Weekend here in Indy last fall:
When it came time to form teams, all the young'uns grouped with one another, and the four of us codgers with responsibilities worked together. The line wasn't drawn according to age: there was one 30+ guy in another group, but he was single; two of the four members of my group were still in our 20's, but we were the primary sources of income for families with children, and I think that led us to fit in better with our 40+ cofounders.
With a few exceptions, I'd find it uncomfortable -- if not unworkable -- cofounding with the bouncy 20-something who has no outside responsibilities. When team building means getting drunk together on a Wednesday night, work hours are noon-8pm, and the company culture is low on planning and high on "nothing to lose", a company is just not going to be a good fit for me.
I'm fine with economic sacrifice, and with working hard. Because I'm looking for a new startup to join, I've tooled down my living expenses such that I could do an extended period somewhere between the two guys in that article. Because I've always been a hard worker, I've made my work schedule part of my family's life: I work a normal 9-3:30 in the office (currently home office, but I'm flexible), then after school, my son brings his homework to my office and we do our work together for a couple of hours. I tend to get in another hour or two in the evenings after he goes to sleep. I never get drunk, let alone on a weeknight when I have to get a first grader up for school in the morning. I'll never end up in an incubator because I'm not changing my son's school, leaving his speech therapy program, leaving our dojo, and generally up-ending his whole world in exchange for a few months of help for my startup.
I often meet people at my stage in life (kids, responsibilities, etc.) who say they don't do start-ups because they perceive "bouncy without responsibilities" to be the expectation of all startups. Their loss. I have to look a little harder, but I find other "codgers" out there in the entrepreneur community. I have to wonder if the people held back by the stereotype really have whatever that spark is that makes us take risks on new things anyway.
Oh, and I almost forgot.... GET OFF MY LAWN!
The perfect start-up for me looks a lot like this:
You'll note that I haven't said anything about preferring b2c or b2b, or what kind of products I like to build. Throughout my life I've been a security geek, a systems coder, a web developer, and worn a few other hats besides -- I'm something of an algorithm and language design geek, so my skills translate very well from one domain to another. I just want to work with talented people, use my talents to the fullest, and build something I'm proud of.I didn't read it as a selfish list of needs with no regard for the team or the customer. In fact, I thought it was refreshing. It seems like he has a good grasp on the kind of team he wants to be a part of and what he can contribute. I would be more inclined to hire someone like that for my team than someone who wasn't that self-aware.
What could be a perfectly fine Ramen profitable company for 3 20-year olds would be a financial disaster for a couple of 40-year olds.
Success isn't always about growing fast or shutting down. Sometimes's it's just about being good enough for long enough to hang on until good things happen... and mixed-age founders have different abilities to hang on in that situation.
There are dual income, no kids couples, there's divorced people, there's never been married people.
It would be great if everyone stops assuming that everyone else is the same as you.
This seems unnecessarily snarky. OP didn't say "all > 30 year olds have these issues", he was talking about his own experience and how it shapes his startup aspirations.
Kids & Mortgage is still very common.
My point was merely that co-founders with very different lifestyles may not be terribly compatible, and that age is not a good predictor of that.
Yet there are at least 1-2 guys well past 30 (likely in their 50's) at the climbing gym I go to that could out climb most of us twenty-somethings. There are also a healthy number of successful entrepreneurs well past 30.
I would posit that more than anything, being "over the hill" is a frame of mind.
Old bull replies : "Let's walk up and ride 'em all"
If working from home eg programming, having your own place can mean that you sleep better and are more focused on doing the work, rather than being distracted by whose turn it is to do the dishes or joining in your roommates' post-bar parties. Of course, having kids or being a caregiver would change the person's profile, regardless of age. Just a few counter-thoughts.
2. it's a lot harder to negotiate terms with an experience entrepreneur.
3. over 30s can hire under 30s.
4. is it techcrunch or techtroll?
My observation is that most young entrepreneurs stick to building consumer internet products that don't require a lot of domain expertise.
I cannot be bothered, in the 14th hour of my workday, to find the reference on the internet but the last time I heard anything the average age was thirty six.
The average VC victim is in their twenties, sure, because they have no capital.
I'm over 30, single, own a home, and am bootstrapping a software/consulting business. Between income from my business, savings, and profits in the stock market (I day trade on the side) I have almost unlimited runway. I don't have to pander to investors and I have the time to really sink my teeth into some hard problems. The crazy thing is when I do the math at the end of the year, I'm not even that far behind where I'd be if I had a day job and I'm still just getting started. What risk?
One important difference though: Like another commenter said, I am not as eager to accept any investor terms thrown my way, nor am I gauging my success on investor interest. I am in this to make a profitable, successful business venture, and will only accept investment on good terms when it will directly aid in the growth of my company. Perhaps that is why VCs might avoid older entrepreneurs, we are more cautious of investment deals, and don't judge success by those alone.
I've been doing some customer development in the area of travel. I quit 3 weeks ago.
They don't look at the percentage of 30+ people who succeed out of the total in their age group who attempted a technology-startup vs. the same for those in their 20s; and if the difference is statistically significant. If he tells me that 20% of people in their 20s succeed and only 5% in their 30s succeed then he'd have a point, I bet he does not.
As a coder, I no longer like coding for the sake of coding. I like coding because it is a means to an end. My powers of abstraction are greater. After 2 years of moderately successful solopreneurship, I fully understand the absolute need to ally with other people.
I am able to cut through people's bullshit easier. When I meet a potential business parter/coder I am more quickly able to see exactly how strong they are, what kind of drive they have, and ultimately I am more quick (and confident) to tell them to fuck off if they are a liability. As a 20-25 year old, I had no confidence and could not speak up for myself.
I focus solely on projects that I enjoy with people that I enjoy working with. My ability to create potentials for happiness and avoid pitfalls is stronger than ever. Physically, I am stronger than ever, and I eat much much healthier.
I am more positioned than ever before to hit a project out of the ballpark.
Finally, at 28.8 I realize that my ageism is just another prejudice that was hindering my ability to take advice. Now, my mind is not closed. It is more open than ever before. Age has worked well for me, and young peers, it will work well for you too.