It’s never too late to get started in your own business.

The Excuse: I don’t have the Energy

Believe it or not, while starting your own business (the side hustle) will take time, but because you are engaged in it, excited about it, you will have more energy.  Often, when we are in our 50s, we are looking forward to retirement, to slowing down, taking things a bit easier.  The days of pulling all-nighters to meet a deadline, don’t fire us up like they used to.  But working a side-hustle excites us, and that excitement even rubs off on our current work.

 

The Excuse:  I don’t have any Ideas

A research study cited in the NY Times indicates that a 55-year-old and even a 65-year-old have more innovation potential than a 25-year-old.  “Less gray hair sharply reduces an organization’s innovation potential, which over the long term can greatly outweigh short-term gains.”  The gray-haired have years of experiences upon which to build an idea.  There is more raw material from which to connect the dots to create a unique innovation.

Study link is here.

Let’s look at some late blooming entrepreneurs and determine if there is a common thread that lead to their success.

Vera Wang

is known world-wide for her beautiful wedding dresses.  And while she started in fashion at a young age it wasn’t until 1989, at age 40, that she started on her own business.  Frustrated with the slim selection of bridal gowns she designed her own dress for her wedding.  At first, she designed wedding gowns for well-known designers such as Christian Dior but then sold her own designs and today her products are featured in over 55 upscale retailers such Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale’s.  Hollywood stars from Halle Berry to Charlize Theron wear her gowns on the red carpet.  From that single bridal shop she has grown her business to products such as engagement rings, dinner plates and cosmetics.  Today, according to Forbes, she is worth over $420 million.

 

While Vera Wang grew up in the wealthy Upper East Side of Manhattan,

Donald Fisher

didn’t have those advantages.  He went to an ordinary high school and graduated with a business degree from the University of California, Berkeley.   He worked in his father’s furniture business until he started a business renovating hotels.  Donald Fisher founded the Gap in the early 70’s at the age of 40.  His store concept of having all the sizes of a product grew out of his frustration at trying to return a pair of Levi’s at a store and get another size.  Later he added the retailers Old Navy and Banana Republic to his empire.  At the time of Donald’s death in 2009 he was worth $3.3 billion.

 

Julia Child

the famous chef, didn’t get excited about cooking (French) until she was 36, after living in Paris for two years and in 1961 at age 49 wrote her first cookbook. “With its clear instructions and explanations and its many useful photographs, it was an immediate success.  Child was hailed as an expert, and she began writing articles on cooking for magazines and newspapers. In 1963, after appearing on a television panel show, Child began a weekly half-hour cooking program, The French Chef”.   Her fame only grew from there.  How would you like for a famous actor (Meryl Streep) to portray your life?  See Julie and Julia.

 

Anna Mary Robertson Moses, better known as

Grandma Moses,

began her prolific painting career at 78.  “By the age of 76, Moses had developed arthritis, which made embroidery painful. Her sister Celestia suggested that painting would be easier for her, and this idea spurred Moses’s painting career in her late 70s. . . What appeared to be an interest in painting at a late age was a manifestation of a childhood dream. With no time in her difficult farm-life to pursue painting, she was obliged to set aside her passion to paint. At age 92 she wrote, ‘I was quite small, my father would get me and my brothers white paper by the sheet. he liked to see us draw pictures, it was a penny a sheet and lasted longer than candy.’  It was her father’s encouragement that fed her passion to paint and this dream was able to manifest later in her life.”

 

President Harry Truman presented her with the Women’s National Press Club trophy award for outstanding achievement in art in 1949 and when she died in 1961, at the age of 101 President John Kennedy said, “we have lost a beloved figure from American life.”

Synopsis of her life here.

In 2006, one of her paintings sold for $1.2 million.

See more after age 40 successes here.

 

Reid Hoffman

of Linked In fame, started the company at age 36 in the spring of 2003 (I joined in 2004, one of the first 1 million members).  In June 2016, Microsoft bought LinkedIn for $26.2 billion dollars.  Reid’s net worth jumped to $800 million on the sale. Today there are over 250 million monthly active users with a total of 500 million users of Linked In.

 

For more entrepreneur stories click here.

 

Rowland Macy started Macy’s at 36, Gordon Moore founded Intel at age 39, and I could go on and on with the successes from those that started late.  While it is interesting to read these stories, it’s important understand what you can apply to your life from their story.  There are a few insights that I gained from examining the lives of late starter entrepreneurs.

 

1. You’re never too old to start. You’re only too old if you think you are too old to start a business.
2. You can make money in many different businesses. All it takes is a good idea and a lot of hard work.  There is nothing innately special about these individuals.  They come from a variety of backgrounds.
3. You have more innovation potential now than decades ago.
4. Use biographies of entrepreneurs to learn from their successes and their failures and most importantly, how they overcame obstacles.
5. Running your own business can keep you young. Donald Fisher was CEO of the Gap until 67 and Chairman until 76.

I’d love to hear when and how you got started in your business.  Leave me a comment on the blog.