What are your (honest) thoughts about older people in the startup world / innovation?

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Sorry what do you mean ? Innovation is about being creative, smart, strategic, hardworking. What does this have to do with age ?

likeupliftingsmart

I'm 55 and use VR for productivity. I have progressive peers in every bracket. I also have peers who lack vision, are mired in pessimism and struggle for relevance. Age is not a criteria for success or failure.

likeuplifting

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Good ideas and innovation only come from young people. Old people had their chance.

But seriously...what?

funnylike

Continue to do what you do for a living till you gain some insite into what it is you wish to transition to. In the meantime, get small jobs in what you want to do and take the opportunity to learn it.
I'm dam near 60, a mechanic, truck driver and im transitioning into nanotechnology with 2 products created and and 5 in r&d. It took me 8 yrs to gain the insite. And, I took advantage of my age and patience to do it right the best I can the 1st time.
But for now for what you want to do check out fivr. It might be something to consider just to see if you really want to do it without spending a bunch of resources.

What!? Youth is no guarantee of innovation. It can take years of professional experience to come to know an industry and recognize white space to build a successful startup.

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I think an older person can have valuable experience. They would just need to have an innovative and flexible spirit, the same as anyone else in a startup.

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You need older people in the startup world otherwise you have a bunch of rugrats without experience. Older people provide so much support and guidance.

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Rugrats! 😂

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Both can succeed. However, from my observation, the "noisiest" startups are usually from the young while the older folks who venture into starting on their own have a higher tendency for success because of their wealth of experience and deep networks.

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I think age is one of many factors. The truth is that each generation is so different, from buying habits to ways of thinking, all are influenced by their history and environments. In todays world it’s “easier” from a digital perspective to create a startup, so maybe an idea someone had in the past is now possible because of the technology. I don’t think startups are reserved for the young or the old. However, from what I have seen, it seems that startups that are publicized often have “younger” people in them. I suppose defining what is “older” is also important, I am 33, is that older? I don’t think so, but someone in their early 20s might.

likesmart

This answer made me smile! I went from an established older company at 42, where I was called Kid regularly, to a tech company where a few folks said “Wow, you’re old.” Luckily I have a great sense of humor! At the ripe old age of 42, I found the switch to a younger company to be invigorating. I also found that my age and experience helped the bright younger people I worked with to think longer term and more broadly. At any age it is easy to project a personal point of view into a product offering, rather than doing a true voice of the (potential) customer, and grounding your offerings in that data.

likehelpful

If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend watching “The Internship” starring Vince Vaughn & Owen Wilson… more experienced professionals have better jokes, that’s a fact!

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I’m 47 years young, I’m on my second start up having sold the first. I actually think this is an interesting question.

With my first start up…I had energy, naivety and not much else. The journey was fun because you don’t really know what your doing.

Second time round I don’t have as much energy (I now have 2 kids, a dog, a cat and a wife who is not as supportive). Life is busy!

I certainly have more knowledge and better connections….but it ain’t as much fun. You look at something and previously you might have jumped in….now you grit your teeth and know the pain/effort ahead to make it happen.

As most people have said…age is not actually relevant…..but it is a factor!!!

The hare and tortoise can both finish the race…

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What’s age got to do with tech startups? I will be 54 this year. Should I not be gambling my life with building tech companies?

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Trust me you SHOULD give it a try. I personally have seen many older founders have great success in our environment. I genuinely have no idea where such a strong online notion comes from that you have to be young to found a startup.

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10x better investment than young people in startup world (depends on meaning of old, I’m assuming you mean 30-50).

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More than 50

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You can have a 26-year-old who is a rigid thinker or a 46-year-old who is incredibly fluid.

Making an assumption about a candidate based on their age is going to limit your talent pool.

likesmart

They deserve to be there just like anyone else! I hate when companies are “ageist”

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Needed. There’s only so much edu can teach the rest is experience

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I think the problem is that you’re looking internally at the organization for innovative ideas when you should be looking outward to your customers. Henry Ford built a car and not a faster horse but did so to address a problem at the time: transportation was slow.

I think there’s plenty of young and older people that believe in solving customer problems and are customer obsessed. These employees tend to make companies better at innovating.

There’s also a large portion of people who believe innovation comes from a guy in a C-suite office wearing Birkenstocks. These companies tend to be very waterfall-like in their approach to innovation and usually make poor business decisions. These are also the companies that I’d recommend avoiding because it means somebody’s ego is more powerful than what the market is saying and they’ll likely never cut their losses on a strategy if it means admitting they were wrong.

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Spot on and well stated.

I hate to sound cliché, but it depends on the person. Typically, the older generation may not be as aware of new trends, software updates, or new social norms that have an effect on the business. However, that older generation have watched the market fluctuate over multiple crisis and has survived that situation or has multiple lessons learned that the younger generation has less exposure to.

In my opinion, I value the tactical and calculated experience of the older generation. If you’re bringing an older generation in it is generally for their specific business acumen and the connections they hold. Your goal as a leader is to always use every resource available to increase your knowledge to pass down to your team.

Remember, the younger generation knows the rules, the older generation knows the exceptions.

- Michael Scott (probably) 🤣

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Not everybody can do it, but that applies to people and startups in general. The ones who can can run circles around the younger people who think they know everything but can be functionally quite sub-optimal.

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Depends tbh. If it's a young startup, you need people willing to grind, hustle, get hands dirty, etc. Doesn't preclude older folks, but you definitely need enough people with the sleeves rolled up to get things done well.

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Not data driven

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