Entrepreneurship is often associated with youth, a notion strengthened by the wild success of super founders like Bill Gates who was 20 years old when he co-founded Microsoft, and Mark Zuckerberg who launched Facebook from his Harvard dorm room at the age of 19 before dropping out.
But is this really the norm in the tech sector and beyond?
No, according to a research paper co-authored by MIT Sloan Prof. Pierre Azoulay.
In “Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship,” published in the journal American Economics Review: Insights, he and a team of co-researchers studied start-ups systematically in the United States, integrating administrative data on firms, workers, and owners.
Azoulay and co. found that the average age of entrepreneurs at the time they founded their companies was 42, though the vast majority running small businesses.
For software startups — the field most often associated with young founders — the average age was 40.
The age range rose even higher in industries like oil and gas or biotechnology, hovering around 47.
But what about the most successful startups?
Prof. Azoulay and his co-authors dug deep into the data and found that among the top 0.1% of startups based on growth in their first five years, the founders started their companies, on average, at 45 years old.
So what gives? Why do older founders, on average, find more success than their younger counterparts?
Azoulay’s findings point to older entrepreneurs having more access to greater human capital, social capital, or financial capital.
In addition, some of the best founders are taking the leap from traditional careers into entrepreneurship. We call this phenomenon “Second-Act Entrepreneurship.”
The Rise of Second Act Entrepreneurship
Featuring Dave Picarillo (Twin Barns Brewing Company) and Charlie Tillinghast (Factal)
For years, the entrepreneurial dream simmered in the background of Dave Picarillo's corporate life. Between flights connecting Topco Associates' Boston and Chicago offices and back-to-back meetings, the longtime consultant would imagine turning his homebrewing hobby into a business.
Similarly, Charlie Tillinghast spent years at MSNBC, eventually becoming President and CEO of MSNBC Interactive News, never quite picturing himself as a startup founder.
Both men waited until their mid-fifties to take the leap. But their timing wasn't a matter of missed opportunity—it was strategic patience paying off.
"I faced financial pressures and personal responsibilities, and for a long time I never acted on my entrepreneurial impulse," Dave recalls. "Launching a business felt too risky and intimidating."
Charlie echoes this pragmatism: "There's a misconception that entrepreneurs thrive on risk-taking when, in actuality, smart entrepreneurs work hard to eliminate risk."
By the time these seasoned professionals launched their ventures, they'd accumulated crucial advantages their younger selves lacked: financial stability, industry expertise, and decades of lessons in managing risk.
For Dave, the catalyst came during a brewery tour with his friend Bruce Walton. After Topco's restructuring prompted his retirement, the two consultants—worn down by constant travel and with adult children launching their own careers—decided over Treehouse New England IPAs to finally "just do it." They spent two years crafting a detailed business plan, securing financing from a local bank after larger institutions deemed their operation too small, and researching gaps in New Hampshire's competitive Lake Winnipesaukee market.
When they discovered twin barns from 1850 in Meredith, filled with abandoned mannequins and motorcycles, two construction companies deemed the structures beyond repair. Dave's stomach sank. But their persistence paid off when a third engineer saw potential. The partners traded suits for work boots, joining the renovation themselves and opening Twin Barns Brewing Company in July 2019.
Charlie's path was less linear but equally deliberate. As MSNBC's president, he exhibited intrapreneurial behavior—entrepreneurship within corporate structures—by acquiring a Twitter account called @BreakingNews in 2009. Run by a 20-year-old in the Netherlands, it pioneered using social media feeds to detect breaking news faster than traditional outlets. Charlie assembled a team to build algorithms and verification systems, attracting millions of followers including the White House Situation Room.
When NBC News shut down BreakingNews in 2016 despite its success—the content didn't appeal to brand advertisers—Charlie saw both a market need and an opportunity to lead something new. "I couldn't believe NBC was shutting down a perfectly good business, one that had proven its ability to fulfill a need," he says. With co-founders Cory Bergman and Ben Tesch, Charlie launched Factal in 2018, focusing exclusively on verified risk intelligence for corporations and government agencies.
Both ventures leveraged their founders' corporate experience in unexpected ways. Dave and Bruce worked every position at Twin Barns—bartending, brewing, maintenance—to understand the customer experience before delegating. They discovered that photos of visiting dogs went viral while carefully staged "beer pornography" didn't, teaching them that community-building extended into marketing.
Charlie ran beta tests with Fortune 500 companies before launch and led with the tagline "from the founders of BreakingNews," providing market awareness few startups enjoy. Today, Factal serves hundreds of subscribers and provides free service to humanitarian relief organizations.
When asked if he'd do it again, Dave's answer is immediate: "In a heartbeat. Co-owning Twin Barns is by far the best job I've ever had. We now wish we'd launched it sooner."
Sometimes the stars don't need to align perfectly—they just need experience, preparation, and the wisdom to recognize when good enough is good enough to begin.
Tell us your story
Are you a Second Act Entrepreneur, or do you ASPIRE to become one? We want to hear your story! Please reply to this email and share. We will feature select answers in next week’s newsletter.
One Month Until Unlikely Entrepreneurs Launch!
February 3 is right around the corner! We are so excited for the world to meet the unlikely Entrepreneurs in our book.
If you haven’t yet pre-ordered, do so now and we will send you a gift! Just reply with an email of your receipt.
