Younger people (less than 35) start their own business much less often than older ones. That is a clear data from statistics about entrepreneurship in the US.
This is reassuring, because beyond the myth of the Zuckerbergs and other student-age Microsoft, Apple and Google founders, it shows that most people that start businesses have significant work experience and possibly, business experience. This should increase the probability of success.
However we also need to be cautious – as it seems that lots of businesses are started defensively by people missing a job, that reason to be an entrepreneur because of that aspect might be more present for people over 35 as part of a career accident, as a way to build on their competencies in a tougher economy.
Unfortunately I have not found data showing business success by age of the founder, so we can’t conclude it is worth having some experience to have more chances to create a sustainable business. If you have such data, please comment!
All figures in this post from the Kauffman report.
