Older Americans Are Starting More Businesses Than Ever

longknife

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Sep 21, 2012
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Retire, reboot, become an entrepreneur.

Makes sense. One has years of experience to enable new experiences with a bit of common sense.

The 55- to 64-year-old age group accounted for 26% of new entrepreneurs in 2017, according to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. That’s a significant increase over the 15% figure from 1996. Research by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor shows the same age group has the highest rate of business startup activity globally over the past decade.

And they partner with younger people.

One of the most powerful motivators comes from dissatisfaction with the traditional view of retirement. Full-time leisure isn’t always as engaging as it’s usually portrayed. Mike Fronk, 77, spent much of his career working in management for two large companies, General Mills Inc. and Land O’Lakes Inc. He took early retirement near his 60th birthday in 2002. Soon after he partnered with his adult children and bought a small networking IT business in his native Minneapolis. “What many of us stereotypically expected was we’d get up at 9 a.m., have coffee, read the papers, watch the news—and we had no clue after that,” he says, laughing. “I always looked for meaning.”

More @ Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
 
I started a business at 64 Now, 5 years later, I have purchased the building I have leased for 5 1/2 years.
I had been retired for 2 years and though I kept busy around the house, I was bored.Sober for 25 years at the time, A good friend (30 years my junior) and I bought a bar that was failing due to horrible management.
We now have a profitable business that has quadrupled our 1st year gross a 3/4 of the way through our 6th year. We have outlasted over 20 bars in town that have opened and closed since we bought the business in 2014. We have purchased the building and we are adding an addition.
It's hard work. I have had to clean up some pretty disgusting situations. I have stopped a knife attack by being pretty fast to the draw, fast enough so I didn't have to kill a man. As on 10 PM last night, I had spent 48 of the previous 72 hours snaking drains after a drunk woman flushed her boyfriend's keys down a toilet. Yesterday, I actually saw a toilet from the bottom...
I love it. It makes me feel young. I date women in their late 30s and early 40s. I help people that have very little, get back on their feet. Yeah, it's a lot of work for a 70 year old, but I'm glad I took the chance. I'll probably never be rich, but I'll always be happy.

DO IT!

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