Age doesn’t matter. You’re not “too old” to do a start-up until you think you are and feel you are. And the domain expertise and experience that come with more years in the field do help a ton.
But your personal burn rate does matter.
One thing I do know: if you are going to do a SaaS start-up for real, you have to budget 24 months just to get it off the ground. To get to Initial Traction:
- This is easier if your “personal burn rate” is close to $0.
- It’s also easier if you have angel investors already lined up to put in say the first $500k.
- It’s also easier if you have savings and are crazy enough to burn through them to fund the business for 24+ months.
So the young, those without mortgages and kids and schools and minivans and the like, generally have a personal burn rate advantage. If you can live on ramen and sleep on a futon for 24+ months, all other things being equal, that does give you an edge if there is little-to-no funding available.
The seasoned have other advantages, though.
Just make sure you budget 24 months to get it Off the Ground, with a $0 salary.
Budget less, and at least in b2b/SaaS, it’s not enough. You almost certainly won’t get far enough to build a sustaining SaaS business.
And it’s always difficult. It’s never easy to build something real, from nothing.
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A little more here: When Jason Lemkin writes about allowing your startup to get to…
