Are Younger Entrepreneurs Better? I THINK NOT!
There is a common perception that once an entrepreneur turns 30, he or she is over the hill. Even worse, the prevailing thought is if you haven’t hit an entrepreneurial home run by age 30, your chances of ever hitting a home run are next to nill.
It turns out that these beliefs are just plain false.
Adeo Ressi, the founder of The Founder Institute, has done personality and aptitude tests on over 3,000 potential entrepreneurs worldwide to draw conclusions on the question: Are younger entrepreneurs better?
Ressi states the following regarding the age myth:
The research shows that an older age is actually a better predictor of entrepreneurial success.
Ressi then goes on to conclude the following:
Age is only one factor among many to predict the success of entrepreneurs, and anybody at any age can break any molds put forward by “experts.” However, it’s clear that the stories of a few “college-dropout turned millionaire” (or billionaire) startup founders have clouded both the mass media and the tech industry from reality. We have romanticized the idea of a young founder because, well, it’s a great story, but these stories are not the norm. In the end, classic biases of gender, race, and age need to be discarded for a real science of success.
To get the background on Ressi’s methodology for these conclusions you should read this blog post he wrote on TechCrunch.