[dbrueck]

Amen to this. And even if an idea is unique, novel, or new, it can immediately be copied by just about anyone, so there's typically not a lot of enduring competitive advantage in just an idea.

I'm in my 40s and have started a handful of successful companies and from what I've seen at least, the miracle 20-something entrepreneur is close to a myth. Obviously there are exceptional cases, but it often takes a couple of decades of learning (and failing) to figure out how to create and grow a successful business.

Part of it is because there are many different stages of growing a business, and each one has unique challenges. You go from "we built something sellable!" to "we have paying customers!" to "we are self-sufficient!" to "we are expanding our market share!" to "we are trying not to slow our innovation!" to "we are under attack from the competition!" and so on.

A pretty solid idea + excellent execution + real business model = really good odds of success.