If you ask anyone here in the Silicon Valley whether age matters when it comes to starting a company, a lot of people will tell you that young people have a better chance at getting something off the ground. In fact, at the start of this year I went to an MIT event where Doug Leone said that people over 30 simply can’t innovate and therefore he doesn’t want to invest in their ideas. Really? Guess I’m doomed in my job, which depends on innovation and nothing else.
Let’s think about this for a second. It makes a lot of sense to bet on young people for innovation. They’re not biased by old ideas or attempts, they have lots of energy and can do “all nighters” (or “ollara” like we used to call them when I was at the University) if needed, they usually don’t have huge financial commitments dragging them down, less likely to be distracted by kids and spouses and more likely to stick through things even if they look tough. Wow, this is looking really bleak for the old guy in the room.
But younger people have their own biases. Why do you think there are 5 gezillion social networks around? Because young people like to socialize with other young people, and find the tools to help them sucking at it (or at least did, the landscape seems to be settling). Why are there another 5 gezillion tools to help you get organized in an über controlled manner? Because young entrepreneurs are obsessed about their productivity and want to squeeze as much as possible out of their 24 hours as possible (damn you, sleep, for taking a third of that!)
And here’s the bias: there are very few good tools for parents to help them manage their lives; there are no tools afaik, aside from email or just the regular social networks, to help families communicate during the daily grind. And the tools that try to help this group suck so badly. Why? Because they’re created by 20-somethings who pretend they understand their demographic! And the people who belong to this demographic have moved on to become executives or something worse and are not involved in any real work anymore.
This is where my UX friends would shout at me, but for innovators, there is value in being part of (or very close to) the demographic you’re designing for. And that’s what I think older entrepreneurs should use to their advantage. Don’t try to create the hottest dating site for young singles, focus on stuff that you understand and deeply care about. And if you have the energy and time, you’re at an advantage compared to the young entrepreneur because you’re the wrong person in the wrong place when compared to the herd.
- Gummi
HAHA! I laugh because _just_this_morning_ my hubby and I were discussing the failure/inconvenience of our collective scheduling tools to manage something family-related. Btw, you know of job openings for 30+ something mom to make the world a better place? :)
Link | March 5th, 2010 at 11:08 am
Excellent post! One thing that is not clear though is the scale of innovation – are innovations like Google or MSFT (which apply to a broad demographic and use case like the Web or PC) more likely to be done by younger folks (LS or Gates) since they can imagine the world in the future better than an older entrepreneur who is colored by their current experience? Or you could argue that having some experience under the belt should allow these older entrepreneurs to make better bets on technology trends.
Link | March 5th, 2010 at 11:25 am
That’s a great point Prasenjit, was kind of ignoring the fact that older demographics might not know the full potential of technology (my own bias I guess)… hmmm, perhaps it’s worth teaming people up, one young energetic with no prejudice or bias, and one older, tired :) but with more experience and the ability to understand the target group?
Link | March 5th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
Hrefna, lots of people share this pain, it’s amazing! Regarding making the world a better place, why not start something yourself? It’s never too late :)
Link | March 5th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
I don’t think “gezillion” is a legitimate fake number, Gummi :) There’s ‘gazillion’, ‘zillion’, ‘umpteen’ (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indefinite_and_fictitious_numbers)
Ok, I totally obviously agree with you on your point, I’m in the same boat, but I gotta say, the key here is “if you have the energy and time”. And, you know what, when I was in my first startup at Half.com, I worked 20 hours a day. Now, with kids? It’s obviously A LOT less than that. And for all “work smarter not harder”, there are a lot of people who can do both & move ahead. And they tend to be younger.
Of course, brilliance & dedication are not really correlated with age, so you can’t exactly look at age as a differentiating factor. There are tons of stupid lethargic young people ;)
Link | March 5th, 2010 at 3:31 pm
Hrefna, what do you do? My company is hiring :)
Link | March 5th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
Hi Mariya,
I’m an electrical engineer (Ph.D), with a background in signal processing – but very open to branching out into new things. :)
Link | March 6th, 2010 at 9:00 pm
Hrefna, we need people who can code :)
Link | March 7th, 2010 at 12:32 am
Great post Gummi. Certainly no substitute for being intimiate / passionate about you target market….or being the user yourself.
BTW, for a family calendar / lists / scheduling system you guys may want to look at Cozi: http://www.cozi.com. I’m not in that “target market”, nor do I have any affiliation with the company; however, I’ve previously worked with a few of the founders at Microsoft and they’re a passionate bunch who know how to build products.
Link | March 9th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
Rishi, I’ve looked at Cozi, but not really tried it to any great extent. My first impression was that it was a) too much of “Outlook for families” and b) just too much! I can’t imagine myself (and my family mind you) committing to such a big product without being comfortable that there are clear benefits beyond just using Google Calendar and a few other tools that I already use. But again, I haven’t really tried it so I’ve put it on my list of products to try and perhaps I’ll write a review some day.
- Gummi
Link | March 10th, 2010 at 12:34 pm