Younger, Experienced Startup Founders Are More Successful

At least these are the conclusions from a recent survey driven by Super Angel Investors David Lee and Ron Conway. I ususally don't re-blog large technical meme's but I thought that the TechCrunch Disrupt footage was very interesting.

Some interesting data from the sample size of ~ 500 startup founders:
- 89% of $500M exits came from startups with co-founders   
- 67% of $500M+ exits came from founders that are under 30
- 90% of the big exits (over $500M+) came from repeat founders

You can see the vidoe post here and the slides are available here.  So is the old adage that younger founders are unburdened by responsibility, more aggressive work ethic, and willingness to swing for the proverbial fences true?  If so, a lot of us are like aging athletes that are passed are prime. 

Comments

[Kirby Winfield]

Makes sense - old folks have trouble with the 24-7-365 nature of year one startups. But i wonder what the average age is of the CEO who delivers the exit for the investors? o/u 35? I'll take the over.

[Matt Hulett]

Great comments. It was great timing for the Founder's Institute's survey. Very illuminating. Thanks for pointing it out - and I feel much better being an "older" entrepreneur.

[Alvin Mullins]

Juxtapose this with Founder institute's study of 2K founders and you will see the study by Lee and Conway is seriously flawed. It is experience older founders that typically lead to success in all levels of startups. Both anecdotally and statistically this is the case. the Lee and Conway study dealt with a seriously narrow band that precluded older founders therefore its not surprising they would come up with this finding.

A similar finding would be that because smokers tend to spend more they are more affluent. No, they are more addicted not affluent.

[chuks onwuneme]

Did you see the Techcrunch article by Founder Institute founder, Adeo Ressi disproving this point about age? I think that's a must read if you haven't.