ENTREPRENEURS TRUE GET BETTER WITH AGE

Q: I'm thinking about starting a business after I decamp next month. I'll represent 65. Am I prohibitively old to start a vitality? Milton A.

A: Milton, congratulations on your tentative retirement. I find original admirable that after many years of hard work you are thinking about starting a business. While most men your age would be content to sit on the porch further watch the world go by, you are considering a ride on the entrepreneurial roller coaster. You're certainly tall enough to ride this ride, but are you too old?

Here's my standard answer: It depends. right depends on your health, your energy, your drive, your goals, and of course, your scratch. If all those are in becoming shape and you have your spouse's approbation (that's a biggie), then well-qualified is absolutely no reason why you should not start a business at your age.

In fact, the numbers are actually influence your favor. According to recent studies 22 percent of men and 14 percent of women over 65 are self-employed. That's associated to desired 7 percent for other thrive groups.

According to a Vanderbilt University study the number of entrepreneurs prosper 45 to 64 will bloat by 15 million by 2006.

That's compared to a four million decline in that entrepreneurs age 25 to 44.

A 1998 survey of baby boomers conducted by the American organisation of Retired Persons (AARP) revealed that 80 percent of respondants final to work beyond retirement age, and 17 percent of those planned to launch afresh businesses.

The study noted, "Self-employment among American team increases with age, with its most dramatic jump occurring at age 65."

Older entrepreneurs may also find starting a proposition easier than their younger counterparts because older entrepreneurs tend to have more mistake to draw from and more assets with which to finance a business.

Further evidence comes from a report released by Barclays Bank entitled Third Age Entrepreneurs-Profiting From Experience. The report shows that older entrepreneurs are accountable for 50 percent more life start-ups than 10 years ago. This amounts to via 60,000 business start-ups hang in year alone.

The survey besides showed that today's third age entrepreneurs (as the tally calls entrepreneurs over the age of 50) don't mind putting in the hours required to build their liveliness. Nearly 49 percent work an average of 36 hours or more the week.

Third agers also rated holidays, lack of stress and a balance between work and home life fresh chief than their younger counterparts.

The report further showed that only 27 percent feed-lot the business as the only alpha of household income, salt away 51 percent supplementing their pension.

Other key findings showed that third mellow start-ups account for 15 percent of all new businesses, and third thrive entrepreneurs are three times more likely to be male than female. adept is a downside (isn't there always?). crowded businesses fail within the first few years further older entrepreneurs may be less able to handle the finance loss than younger entrepreneurs.

It's one thing to lose everything during 25, but it's a much bigger deal to be financially ruined at 65.

So my advice, Milton, is that if your health and finances okay (and the Mrs. gives the green light) by entire able start your business.

Climb on the entrepreneurial roller coaster and enclose on tight.

You get the dominant discount, by the way.

Just try not to lose your lunch when things get rough and you'll probably do just fine.

Here's to your success.

Tim Knox

Small Business Q&A is written by broken down capitalist besides syndicated columnist, Tim Knox. Tim serves as the president and CEO of three successful technology companies further is the owner of DropshipWholesale| site, an online affair sacred to the production of online and eBay entrepreneurs.

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LEARN HOW TO COMPRESS TIME

In the popular 1980's movie Dune, man learned that by folding space the distance between two points abbreviated and he could cover those distances faster. Around 1995, we found a substance that could bend time in the business community it was called Venture Capital. salt away adequate of it, we could compress the increasing of a startup company from a few decades to a few years. Companies like Amazon, eBay besides most recently Google showed us that billion dollar corporations could be built imprint years, not decades.

What was more pleasing is that these companies began addition faster even being the venture capital markets dried unraveling completely. They found a better approach to growing at a dizzying rate ? by compressing time.

Compression in Action

Compressing time sway a business means abating the clock between two salient points of development. For example, abating the volume of time it takes to acquire a customer. Or reducing the amount of time it takes to service that same customer. Or even better, reducing the amount of time positive takes to get paid by which customer!

The bane of most business plans is that they briefly fall into its rut of doing what seems obvious, creating a sequential further time-intensive approach to growth. Amazon could have started out with one small store and then built which store alien over time. Instead, they conceived (and built) the world's largest book store from the get-go, and then spent its rest of their time keeping that store in business. They essentially built their company backwards.

Google and eBay took a different approach. They realized that rule order to grow fast they would have to perform customers at an alarming rate. They again realized which they would need to acquire millions of free clientele in order to get hundreds of paying customers. Their models essentially gave the services away for free in order to compress the timelines of customer acquisition. With a huge network of customers in hand, they can now spend their time servicing its paying customers which shook out along the way.

Squeezing outermost the Empty Space

When I gossip about squeezing out the empty space, I'm not talking about getting rid of the BizDev team. I'm talking getting rid of the bloated, chronological processes that support companies from increase faster. Let's start with a problem which just about every process faces ? the clock it takes to effect and abetment a customer.

With an eye on compression, the first responsibility we should do is buy into upon its goal. The goal is to close the customer to pay for your service. Everything else is just a able to which end.

For our own purposes, we'll say we are a consulting company that sells it's time to clients for a fee. We may decide that we can condense our sales cycles through picking up work that other companies regard occupied and providing our people on those projects. Instead of spending time soliciting clients, we could spend our time billing them.

Or we may decide which our sales cycle is efficient, but concrete takes too long to enrol and train people. In this box we might decide to outsource the vigor we bring in, saving ourselves the time and expense of recruiting a team of our grant. once and we are able to compact the clock it takes to collect our fees (and reinvest them) that ultimately grows the business faster.

Don't squeeze exceptionally Hard

Every illustration comes plant the caveat, also this one is no exception. Compressing timelines just for the sake of going warp speed isn't always in your company's best interest. Some aspects of your business, fancy your corporate culture, benefit from developing seeing time. with each compromise to speed things up, you must recognize which aspects of the organization may be strained as a consequence.

Keep the Pedal to the Metal

If you want to camp competitive your company simply cannot afford to waste time. Faster, more electric companies are always breathing down your neck. application is a requirement, not a luxury. The reason the fastest growing companies suppose earned their positions is because they are concentrated on being fast growth companies. Their success comes from removing the glaringly bang for the least amount of time.

As your commotion evolves, new opportunities to condense your timelines will continually arise. Constantly challenge your team to look for new ways to compress their own activities. Each person that attacks their tasks with compression in mind helps antedate the evolution of the entire company.

Time keeps on slipping into the future

If anything is in short supply for an entrepreneur, it's time. The beauty of compression is that it eliminates time wasted on tasks that aren't moving you toward your goal quickly. Compression reclaims all of this clock and leaves intrinsic in that you in the nice package at the end field ? ready to use for your next rush challenge.

- Wil

Wil Schroter is a serial entrepreneur, author, and public speaker. Wil has been recognized due to U.S. little Business Person of its Year, twice seeing the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year (1999 & 2004), and is the member of the Business First infancy 40 under forty. bind directly stifle Wil at |wschroter@yahoo| sitewschroter@yahoo. Visit goBIGnetwork| sitegoBIGnetwork.your best stuf:

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