Ask HN: Is 40 too late to start a software biz?
All we read about are the 20s and 30s whizkids starting companies and retiring before they even hit 40. Any examples of 40+ people starting companies successfully? Is 40s too late?
"A Study of 2.7 Million Startups Found the Ideal Age to Start a Business (and It's Much Older Than You Think) If you're in your 40s or 50s, you might think it's too late to start a business. Wrong: It's actually the perfect time." https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/a-study-of-27-million-startup...
Survey of 652 CEOs... "The average and median age of U.S.-born tech founders was thirty-nine when they started their companies. Twice as many were older than fifty as were younger than twenty-five." https://www.kauffman.org/entrepreneurship/reports/education-...
Examples: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/28/tech-founders-45.html https://arkenea.com/blog/entrepreneurs-above-50/
1. Can you afford to go without income for at least 2 years and possibly indefinitely?
2. Do you have kids? What age range? Starting a software company with kids in the 0-5 range is very, very difficult, particularly if you have multiples. The only time I've seen it succeed is if you started the company before having kids, and the product is already built and has some measure of traction before the kids are born.
3. Have you built up a large amount of domain expertise in a particular industry before starting the company, and is the company related to that domain? Older founders rely more on experience: they don't have the same raw energy and the same tap into the cultural zeitgeist that younger founders do, but they should know how a particular industry operates and what the key problems within it are.
4. Do you have a network to draw on, both for potential co-founders and employees and for potential customers?