New Research Reveals the Ideal Age to Start a Business. Actually, where startup success is concerned there are 2 great times to launch a company.

During a speaking gig — back when gatherings of more than a handful of people were still a thing — I asked the audience who was better positioned to start a successful business: A twentysomething entrepreneur or a fiftysomething entrepreneur.

Not surprisingly, the majority voted for the twentysomething, clearly ascribing to the Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Brin/Page, Richard Branson, et al paradigm. 

Turns out they were right.

And also wrong: New research shows the rate of success for people who launch a business in their 20s is the same as for those who become entrepreneurs in their 50s.

According to the research, there’s a balance at play. While younger startup founders tend to be more tech savvy and less risk-averse, older startup founders benefit from greater experience, business skill, connections, and access to capital (if only their own.)

Unfortunately, founders in their 30s and 40s are significantly less likely to enjoy startup success. The researchers theorize that “midlife,” and all that comes with it — family responsibilities, increased risk aversion, etc. — create significant hurdles. (Not that there’s ever an easy path to entrepreneurial success.)

Those findings run somewhat counter to an earlier study indicating most successful
entrepreneurs tend to be middle-aged, even in the tech sector. The average founder age of the most successful tech companies was 45.

Generally speaking, the study showed that a 50-year-old entrepreneur was almost twice as likely to start an extremely successful company as a 30-year-old, and a 40-year-old entrepreneur was more than twice as likely to found a successful startup as a 25-five-year-old, and a 60-year-old founder was three times as likely to start a successful company as a 30-year-old.

While that study didn’t include a focus on gender, the more recent research found that older female entrepreneurs tend to be significantly more successful at launching a company than younger ones. 

“Our findings suggest women should not give up too readily,” Zhao says, “because their chance of success increases as they move to later life stages, and their perseverance ultimately tends to pay off.”

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