When it comes to doing business, they say, the younger you are, the more successful you can be. There’s some truth to that, of course. You have the idealism of a person fresh out of university. You have the vigor to get moving and juggle several things at the same time. You have fewer life duties—no mortgage, no kids yet. All of these are supposed to increase your chances at business success.
But the full truth about entrepreneurship is that age doesn’t matter. This implies that even if you’re far off your young, adolescent years, you can still do business and nail it. Not convinced? Take a look at these facts that prove that it’s not too late to become an entrepreneur:
You have a long history of experience
Yes, it may be experience unrelated to the business you’re envisioning, but for sure, you have developed—perhaps mastered—the basic skills and attitude needed to keep a venture afloat. Your long career stint, for instance, in the HR department in your last job helped you become equip to attract talents and screen potential employees, the greatest assets of your business. It will also help you develop good policies and come up with training programs to further enrich your team.
Skills aside, your HR career, more or less, instilled in you the attitude of empathy toward people. You need this in evaluating business opportunities and weighing whether an idea addresses the market’s pain points. You need it to build and manage finances while being sensitive to how your decisions will impact your family, business partners, or investors. No matter what your career is, it gives you a great advantage in becoming an entrepreneur.
You have a broad network
Relationships are indispensable to the success of a business. Given that you’ve spent so many years in the professional industry, it’s safe to assume that you’ve already built a broad network. These people you got to know from the jobs you took or the conferences you attended in the past can very well help you in starting your business. They can fill in knowledge gaps in different areas of your operations. They can connect you to other experts.
The greatest advantage must be that they can introduce you to a lot of promising business opportunities. Reconnect with these people. Check out their Facebook or LinkedIn pages to see what they’ve been up to. Meet them over coffee. Your former office seatmate may just get you involved in fast-food franchises as they’re franchisees themselves.
You have the money
Young entrepreneurs may not have too many financial obligations, but the challenge is that they also don’t have enough resources yet. As for you, by the time that you hit your 50s or 60s, you’re most likely done with paying the mortgage and sending kids to school. You’ve already saved some cash from the years of working, so you can jump-start your venture right away and build your pool of resources from investors later.
It’s never too late to do business. In fact, you may just have the advantage you need when you start now in your late 40s or 50s. Embrace these perks as you begin your entrepreneurial journey.
