Who is the modern start-up entrepreneur in 2019?

We wondered about the portrait of the modern start-up entrepreneur and were surprised by the statistical figures.

It turns out that the average age of successful start-up entrepreneurs is 42. And Generation Y and Z have a great decade to gain experience in entrepreneurship and save money.

Statistics on the age of startups from Duke University, the Kaufman Foundation, the Founders Institute and the Northwestern Institute have shown that the average entrepreneur is 40 when launching their first startup, while the average age of high-growth startup leaders is 45.

On the one hand, people in their forties are experienced and resilient in running a business and don't make the usual twenty-something mistakes. Sam Walton was 44 when he founded Walmart. Linda Weinman co-founded Lynda at age 40 and then sold it to LinkedIn for USD 1.5 billion. Ray Kroc was 52 when he launched McDonald's into a multi-billion dollar national chain.

While we watch movies about a twenty-year-old Mark Zuckerberg writing Facebook algorithms in a dormitory and tend to distort existing reality in doing so. Most entrepreneurs have stories of invisible failure after failure before they achieve breakthrough and success. Jeff Bezos, meanwhile, founded Amazon as an online bookseller and only achieved his highest growth when he was 45.

Young entrepreneurs have a few other things in common. Surprisingly, these are not people who aspired to start a business in school, but the sons and daughters of enterprising parents. According to researchers at Duke University:

• they're just tired of working for others
• they have a great idea that they monetised
• want to get rich in the here and now, not when they retire.

After the age of forty people usually think less about money, fame and attention as they did in their twenties. Instead, you think about a legacy for your family, a legacy for your life achievements and usually about broader topics beyond courage.