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When you picture a successful startup founder, who do you see?
The business world often glamorizes young male founders as harbingers of rapid achievement and revenue generation, but the reality looks a bit different.
Research suggests that women-founded companies generate more revenue despite receiving less in investments, and a 2020 study revealed that some of the most successful founders in the U.S. are in their 40s.
In fact, the latter study found that the average age of U.S. founders of highest-growth new ventures was 45 — and that those in their 20s had the lowest likelihood of executing a successful exit or creating a highest-growth firm.
Entrepreneur sat down with four women founders who started their businesses after the age of 40, and their personal stories and experiences continue to dispel the myth that their demographic isn’t just as equipped to launch and grow strong companies.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Sloomoo Institute. Sara Schiller, left, and Karen Robinovitz, right.
Joanna Strober, 56, is the founder of Midi Health, a virtual care clinic for women in midlife. Julie Bornstein, 54, is the co-founder of AI-powered shopping platform Daydream. Sara Schiller, 54, and Karen Robinovitz, 52, are the co-founders of Sloomoo Institute, a multi-city experiential brand.
“You have more experience. I see no downsides.”
“It’s been all advantages,” Strober says of starting her company at this stage of life. “It’s a great time to start a business. You’re smarter. You have more experience. I see no downsides.”
Image Credit: Courtesy of Midi Health. Joanna Strober.
Indeed, the life and career experiences required to launch certain businesses can give over-40 founders a distinct advantage.
For Strober, inspiration for Midi Health stemmed from her own struggle with perimenopause symptoms. When she finally found a San Francisco-based concierge doctor who prescribed medications that brought relief, she wanted all women to have access to that kind of care.
Founding her first company, Kurbo Health, which sold to Weight Watchers in 2014, helped inform Strober’s approach to Midi Health.
Midi Health launched in 2021 and has raised more than $100 million in funding to date with rounds led by Google Ventures and Emerson Collective.
Years of establishing professional connections can pay dividends, Strober notes: “You have bigger networks and can solve big problems. And, as you get older, you understand what those big problems are and what the opportunities are to solve them.”
Related: 5 Ways to Network Your Way to Business Growth and Wealth
“I’m able to pattern match from all of the jobs I’ve had in the past.”
Bornstein had spent her entire ecommerce career “trying to jump on new technology trends to make shopping better.”
Image Credit: Courtesy of Daydream. Julie Bornstein.
After her previous AI-powered shopping platform, The Yes, was acquired by Pinterest in 2022 and ChatGPT launched, it was the right time to bring her idea for a fashion recommendation engine to life. The former Stitch Fix COO got to work finding co-founders and investors.
“The biggest benefit is having so much experience under my belt,” Bornstein says. “I’m able to pattern match from all of the jobs I’ve had in the past.” For instance, she knows how to hire and “break up” with employees effectively, and her established reputation makes hiring and raising money easier.
Related: What Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know About Raising Capital
Daydream has raised more than $50 million in a seed funding round co-led by Forerunner Ventures and Index Ventures.
“Embrace your experience and trust your intuition.”
Schiller and Robinovitz, friends for 17 years, leaned on each other for support after tragedy brought periods of tumult in both of their lives — then found slime to be a joyful “escape” they wanted to share with others.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Sloomoo Institute. Sara Schiller and Karen Robinovitz.
Their combined experiences in talent management and the event space helped them see their business’s unique potential, but building a company they have such a strong emotional attachment to also requires a level of “vulnerability” that comes more easily in their 50s, the co-founders say.
“Embrace your experience and trust your intuition,” Robinovitz says. “Do not entertain the doubters because you actually know. People said we were literally crazy. They were like, ‘What are you doing?’ And we were like, ‘We got this.'”
Related: 4 Reasons Intuition Is an Essential Leadership Skill
In 2022, Sloomoo Institute raised $5.8 million in a Series A funding round led by Nicole Shanahan with participation from Raptor Group. The company boasts five U.S. locations with plans to open four more next year as it builds a media “universe” of characters.
“The amount of free brain power is extraordinary.”
Additionally, for some over-40 women founders who raised families while building their careers, as kids grow up and move out, they find themselves with a lot more time and flexibility in their schedules — two major advantages when it comes to entrepreneurship.
“I can work all the time, and there’s no one who needs me to cook them dinner,” Strober says. “When I go to an event at night, I don’t have to worry about someone’s homework or getting them lunch for the next day. The amount of free brain power is extraordinary.”
Bornstein shares a similar experience. “Now that my kids are in college, I have more time than ever to focus on work,” she says, “and I’ve always loved my work. It’s kind of my hobby as well as my passion.”
Related: How I Manage 5 Kids and a Growing Business
“You can take more risks than you could earlier.”
What’s more, building a business after 40 can come with a healthy appetite for risk — and the benefits that go along with it.
“In many ways, you can take more risks than you could earlier in your career,” Strober says.
Bornstein agrees, adding that with age comes the increased confidence of having seen and done it all.
“I trust myself and my instincts,” she explains. “I’m a better leader and manager because I have more empathy and understanding of how to make organizations work well.”
Related: You Have to Take Risks to Succeed. Here Are 4 Risk-Taking Benefits in Entrepreneurship.
Robinovitz and Schiller say they’re also less afraid to take risks now because they’ve already had to take so many.
“It’s crazy that we [started a business based on slime],” Schiller says. “It’s not normal. It’s never been done before. It’s not easy. And it’s [made possible by] a combination of tapping into our combined experience, deep in different areas and also tapping into fearlessness — because if it fails, we’re going to keep going.”
“ If we do fall,” Robinovitz adds, “we can brush ourselves off, get back up and go at it again.”
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