Starting a New Business in Your Prime of Life

Starting a business after age 50…

Ok, not that 50 is old… but, you’re in a different state than others that are in their early 20’s You’ll see why I say that in a few minutes as you go through this article. Beginning a new business is tough at any age. At your age you have to be careful because you’re coming up on retirement soon and you don’t want to blow your cash on a crazy idea. Some caution is in order.

You have more money to invest, but at the same time you have more to lose if that’s the case. Business entrepreneurs over 50 have a better chance to succeed than their much younger counterparts… your knowledge and experience puts you in a better position to grab success.

What should you do?

Like pulling a beer from a tap… you have to tap your network. You have decades of accumulated friends and co-workers and it’s time to get them into a manageable list. Email addresses, Facebook, and face to faces are in order. Many times a successful business or not comes down to the networking and pool of customers, friends and experts the owner of a new business has contact with. Someone in their 50’s or older has a deep network to help them start their business.

Experience. Experience. Experience. Use it. The business you start is probably similar to jobs you’ve held in the past. You have a lot of knowledge built up – many experiences that will help you get through problems. The experience you’ve built up over the years isn’t like two twenty somethings, it’s like 6 of them. Again, anyone you can team up with or network with – increases that knowledge base and experience-base.

Get to work finding startup funding. A huge barrier to successful business prosperity is finding enough capital to get you going. Mike Hodge, a retired engineer from Akron, Ohio won a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop an advanced microwave system which helped him start his new company. In addition to that grant he also mortgaged his home and found another $50,000. That’s what it took. Are you ready to do what it takes?

Prepare yourself to put in the hours. Starting your own business is not easier than working for someone else – it’s harder. You’ll be doing many things you can’t afford to pay someone else to do. Decide – will you allow this new business to dominate your life? Your free time will dry up and blow away as you put hour after hour into your new business to make it work. The payoff will come – but, at the expense of serious effort in the beginning stages. It’s that way for nearly all new businesses.

Keep costs low. Cut costs wherever possible. Eat in. Clean up yourself. Start your business in your home or partner’s home. In most cases you dont’ need a storefront to start off. You probably don’t need a new computer or half the stuff you’re thinking of purchasing. Reign in all costs before they become a plan. See how little you can start your new business on – not how much.

Have a backup plan. Most small businesses don’t make it past 3 years. Know the worst-case scenario and be prepared for it. Be prepared to keep your head up and swing into the next phase of your plan. The backup should be part of your plan. It’s dicey to put your own money into a new business venture. It’s important to know that if it fails – you have something else to look forward to. You have a plan to keep going forward, not fall back and cry in your soup. Pick it up and keep moving forward – toward something.

Good luck! If you need anything – feel free to write us here…