Setting up a business after 65 – some essential advice
Collaborative Post
Starting a business over the age of 65 can feel challenging. The term “grayprepreneurship” is often thrown around for seniors who get into starting businesses.
But what do you really need to do to make it a success as you’re getting older? Obviously you’re going to have to work in a different way from younger founders. Taking advantage of your wisdom, including patient realism and an understanding of what it takes to succeed.
Leverage your lifetime of experience
The first thing you can do when you’re setting up a business to improve your finances as an older adult is to leverage your lifetime of experience.
Often you have spent years solving problems and gaining industry insights. Once you accumulate this knowledge, you are able to teach, coach, and consult at a higher level than ever before. You’re also able to base your services on this knowledge.
You don’t necessarily have to build a scalable business. Instead, you can build a business that relies on the inherent capital that you already have in terms of what you learned and what you can offer to people who are still working in regular businesses and jobs.
Start small to minimize your risk
As an older person, you also have to keep an eye on the stability of your finances. You can’t just go all in on something, just in case you run out of money to support you in your older years. For this reason, it’s a good idea to start small and minimize risk. Getting into businesses that don’t rely on a massive outlay of capital to set up is probably the best option. Tutoring, consulting, or e-commerce are all good examples of this.
Many seniors start with micro-enterprises and then build them from there into larger businesses once they have a proof of concept. As long as you have an income-generating system, you’re better able to massively scale and get the results that you want in your enterprise. Recovering from big losses is much more challenging as you get older because it requires such a lot of hard work and dedication. Sometimes you only have 20 to 30 hours to dedicate to your business as you age, because you simply can’t work as much as you did when you were younger.
Go in with someone else
Another piece of advice is to go in with somebody else who’s younger than you as an older entrepreneur. They can bring energy and dynamism to the equation, while you bring wisdom and a high-level overview of strategy.
When you have a business partner, it can be invigorating. You can also set up a joint business account to give them more control over day-to-day activities.
Once you are with somebody else, it gives you more confidence, and you are not having to rely on yourself entirely. You reduce the risk of overwhelm while putting your energy into the things that matter.
So there you have it, some advice for older people who are planning on setting up a business. Is this something you’re looking into doing?
Photo from Unsplash on licence