If you keep looking up the best age to start a business, you have probably carried the idea for years. The worry sounds the same at 32, 44 and 51: you are either too early or too late.
The data says otherwise. Across 2.7 million US founders, the average age at founding was 41.9. For the fastest-growing 1 in 1,000 companies, it was 45.0.
So there is no single best age. Each decade gives you a different advantage and makes a different thing harder.
Short answer: The best age to start a business is the age when you have expertise a client will pay for. By your mid-30s you usually have it. Your 30s give you experience and lower spending, your 40s give you buyers and contacts, and your 50s give you depth.
Key takeaways
- The average US founder was 41.9, so your 30s are early and your 40s and 50s sit right around the average.
- Founders with 3 or more years in their industry reached top growth twice as often, and you clear that mark by your mid-30s.
- In your 30s, your spending has not yet grown through another decade of raises, so a slow first year is easier to cover.
- In your 40s, you have sat on the buying side of the deals you want to win.
- If you are in your 50s, staying put carries a risk too, since 56% of US workers tracked from 50 lost a longtime job at least once.
- At any age, you can start in the hours before work, with no sabbatical.
Check the founder data on the best age to start a business
Pierre Azoulay, Benjamin Jones, J. Daniel Kim and Javier Miranda matched US Census records for 2.7 million founders of companies that hired staff.
Their study in American Economic Review: Insights found an average founding age of 41.9. A 50-year-old founder was 1.8 times more likely to reach top-tier growth than a 30-year-old founder.
One thing to note is that the study only counts companies with staff. Most expertise businesses (consulting, coaching, specialist freelance work) have none, so read the ages as a guide.
The finding that carries over best is about experience. Founders with 3 or more years in their company’s industry reached the top 1 in 1,000 at a rate of 0.22%. Founders with none reached it at 0.11%, according to the NBER working paper.
You clear that mark long before 40.
Compare what each decade gives you and what it makes harder
| Your decade | What do you already have? | What gets harder? | What should you do first? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your 30s | You have 8 to 15 years in your field, and spending you can still cover. | Your first year will likely pay much less than your salary. | Write down the problem colleagues keep bringing you. |
| Your 40s | You have been the buyer, and your contacts now hold budgets. | Your spending grew with every raise you took. | Price your real monthly spending and your benefits. |
| Your 50s | You have 25 years of the same problems coming back to you. | Your savings sit in retirement accounts with early-withdrawal rules. | List the 5 problems you are always pulled into. |
Start in your 30s while your spending is still easy to cover
By your 30s you have 8 to 15 years of work behind you, and you know which parts of it you are good at.
The only thing is, the founder stories you grew up on star 22-year-olds - so at 34 you feel late. Next to a 45-year-old, you feel green.
Neither feeling matches the data. In the same Census study, the founding rate per worker peaked at age 38. A bigger share of 38-year-olds started companies than workers of any other age.
This decade also gives you 2 practical advantages. Former colleagues are moving into their first management jobs, which is where budgets for outside help sit.
And your spending has not yet climbed through another decade of raises. The number the business has to replace is as small as it will get.
The harder part is first-year pay. Gusto tracked nearly 24,000 solopreneurs and found that Millennial solopreneurs earn about 60% less than their employee peers in year 1. Millennials are now in their 30s and early 40s.
So work out the smallest monthly figure that covers your life, and build the business toward that number first.
Start in your 40s by selling to buyers you used to sit beside
By 40 you have almost certainly been the customer. You hired the agency, approved the contractor or signed off the invoice (possibly all 3).
So you know who signs, what made your own boss say no, and what your employer pays an outside specialist for work close to yours. That day rate is your best reference point for pricing.
Your contacts have grown up too. Former colleagues run teams and hold budgets now, and they already know your work.
The harder part is that your spending grew with every raise. The number you have to replace is your real monthly spending, which is usually well below your salary once you work it out.
Your employer also pays for things that never show up on your payslip. Stella Guan, the founder of This Uncommon Life, quit her job and found that health insurance was the expense she had not planned for.
In the United States, the big items are health insurance, the retirement match and the employer’s share of payroll taxes. Wherever you live, list the 2 or 3 things your employer pays for you. Price each one for a self-employed person in your country, and add the total to your monthly number.
Case study
Burkhard Stubert went solo 19 days before his 45th birthday
He had spent 14 years building software with Qt, and he sells one narrow specialty: the screens operators use to run industrial machines. In 2016 he went 6 months without a project, interviewed for permanent jobs and turned them all down. Then 3 freelance projects came up within a week.
His write-up of 10 years of solo consulting shows what a narrow specialty does for you. Dry spells still happen, and the specialty is what brings the work back.
Start in your 50s with the problems you always get pulled into
By 50 you have about 25 years of the same few problems coming back to you - that is your raw material.
Curt Roese is a CPA and former CFO who writes for professionals going solo after 50. He tells readers to write down the 5 problems they were the go-to person for.
Staying put carries its own risk.
ProPublica and the Urban Institute followed US workers from age 50. They found that 56% were laid off or pushed out of a longtime job at least once. Only 1 in 10 of them ever earned as much again.
The harder part is money set aside for later. In the United States, taking money out of an IRA before age 59½ generally adds a 10% additional tax on top of income tax. Elsewhere, look up the early-access rules for your own retirement savings.
If your plan needs a withdrawal from retirement savings, the business is too big for a first version. Start with the smallest piece of your expertise a client could buy.
Recommended next step
Turn the experience you already have into a business that pays
Settle the direction you commit to, then build the business correctly underneath it, in that order and in 8 weeks. That is Plan A, for professionals with years of experience and nothing earning from it yet.
Wait if your stock options or bonus pay out within 12 months
Stock options, a retirement match or an annual bonus might pay out within the next 12 months. If so, that date has a dollar figure on it. Wait for it, and build in the meantime, the way starting a business while working full time lays out.
Run these 4 checks while you still have your salary
You do not need a sabbatical, a career break or a gap in your income to start. Spend 2 hours on it before work, 4 mornings a week, and that adds up to about 400 hours a year.
Write down the problem colleagues keep bringing you
Use one sentence, in the words the colleague asking uses. That sentence is where your offer starts.
Check how long your savings would last you
Divide the savings you can reach without a penalty by your real monthly spending. Our free Solo Founder Roadmap works this out from 6 answers, and shows what the business has to earn each month.
Price what your employer pays on your behalf
Start with health cover, retirement contributions and payroll taxes, priced for a self-employed person where you live.
Talk to 4 potential clients who live with that problem
Skip the pitch. Ask how they handle it today, what they have tried and what they paid for it.
You can run all 4 checks on your own. The step that decides whether any of it pays off is choosing which direction to commit to.
Get help with the choice that decides whether the rest works
Whatever your age, you have the experience and nothing earning from it yet. The step this article keeps coming back to is the choosing. It is also the step founders most often get wrong on their own.
Recommended next step
Build the business on the experience you already have
In 8 weeks you settle the direction, set the business up correctly underneath it, and leave with an offer and a plan for reaching buyers. That is Plan A, one on one and application-based. Most founders in it are still in a 9 to 5.
Work out what you should build, in 60 minutes
Come with too many directions and you leave with one, plus the reasons it beat the others. Come with none and you leave with a method for finding them. That is The Shortlist, our free live workshop for the choosing step on its own, and it is the first step into Plan A.
