It’s been interesting working at Capital Factory, my new co-working space. Everyone seems like they’re 27. It’s the center of the startup scene in Austin, and since startups are the stereotypical employer for Millenials, it’s been a great place to people-watch and form opinions about the zeitgeist. Sometimes daydreaming gets me into trouble, though. If I spend too much time thinking about age, I start to lament that I’m no longer 27. (I’m 35.) One time, on one of the regular tours at Captial Factory, I overheard a woman in her 40s tell someone, “I’m too old for this.” The comment struck a chord with me. When I see older people working in the space, I sometimes have an unwanted, judgmental thought: “What are you still doing here?” But is this thought about them or is it about me?
I think this ill-feeling comes from a classic misunderstanding between surface and substance when it comes to entrepreneurship. I sense that the average age for an entrepreneur to get their first “hit” is 35. Here we define a hit as having a year where you independently create wealth that could have replaced a year of earning a middle-class salary, or $75,000-$100,000 depending on where you live and your benchmark. If you run a food truck, this would be the equivalent of having lines out the wazoo for a year. If you’re an iOS app developer, this would be having a bunch of people purchase your…
