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by coldtea 1218 days ago
>There have been studies which put the average age of successful founders in their mid-40s.

There have also been statistics which put the average percentage of succesful founders among attempted founders at 0.0001% (number pull out of my ass, but the gist is: most startups fail).

So, this is not as reassuring as it sounds, as it amounts to something like:

"You might be fired at mid-40s under an IT sector that discriminates against hiring older developers, but don't worry: you can always start your own startup with odds of it succeeding not that different to winning the lottery".
1 comments
throwaway4aday 1218 days ago
That number seems excessive. There are a lot of numbers out there but the most frequent one seems to be 90% of startups fail. It should be remembered that this is also why people say "fail fast", if your business is going to fail it's better to get it over with quickly so you can iterate on the next idea. That's the second insight, you don't just get 1 shot especially in tech where the startup costs are so low.
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coldtea 1218 days ago
>That number seems excessive. There are a lot of numbers out there but the most frequent one seems to be 90% of startups fail.

That's still an endeavor slim 10% chance of success, offered as a "solution" to a fired mid-40s dev looking for a paycheck.

Not to mention that to create and support the startup to success takes money.

And that the 10% success rate is possibly because not every fired mid-40s dev starts one, but only those with some potential to succeed to begin with.

:)

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throwaway4aday 1218 days ago
I think the message is getting garbled. The person doing a startup is in their 30s and wasn't fired. The next response was someone offering assurance that even 40 isn't too late in response to their concern that it was "now or never".

I don't think we're advising any particular person, we're just talking about the potential for a dev to do a startup at any point in their life. Obviously if someone is going to attempt a startup they should know their own situation which includes knowing you have enough money and the inclination to go into business for yourself. Whether the 10% would be higher or lower if everyone did it we can't really know. A lot of people that have great ideas and can execute them well probably never attempt to go out on their own, same for the opposite.

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