Get real time updates directly on you device, subscribe now.
Read Time: 4 mins
Mostly media and the magazine label it as an overnight success. This is usually when few guys from their 20’s receive the flatteries of a celebrity. Giving a perception that Entrepreneurship is all about young people and the teens who have big ideas. On the contrary, there are tons of Entrepreneurs out there who are way beyond the typical age bracket but are still successful.
Of course, they survived because they were consistent with their efforts. The fact that they didn’t have any investment advice at that age, these experienced Entrepreneurs started late but proved that success has nothing to do with age.
- Leo Goodwin, GEICO
It all began in the year 1936. When Leo Goodwin founded GEICO with his supportive wife Lillian in Washington, D.C. GEICO which is the Government Employee’s Insurance Company is now a reputed car insurance company with praise-worthy marketing numbers.
Every successful company initiates with a need. And in the case of GEICO, Leo felt the need of insurance overhaul. He realizes that companies are not dealing directly with the customers. The larger chunk of money is being left for the broker. To save the money of customers, Leo founded GEICO with just 12 people in the start and around 3,700 policies in place. Move forward a few years, the company is now running with 27,000 employees and has over 14 m policyholders.
2) Harland David Sanders, KFC
Col. Sanders story is not a new one. The idea behind KFC is pretty unusual from a businessman point of view. But the idea finally took off. When Harland David Sanders was fired from multiple jobs in a row, he started working on a secret recipe. When people are willing enough to touch the sky, GOD creates a way out for them. A fire at the Corbin station gave the opportunity to Col. Sanders to re-built the place and convert it into a 140-seat restaurant.
Harland David Sanders, at age 62 licensed his KFC. Today the company is wide-spread across the globe with over 18,860 outlets in various countries.
3) Robert Noyce, Intel
The machine on which I am writing on and the one on which you’re reading is the technology which was initiated and founded by Robert Noyce. The microprocessor revolution is the baseline of all the machines that we use today.
Robert Noyce was a visionary who earned his doctorate from MIT on physics. Noyce initially started his career as a research engineer at Beckman Instruments. In the year 1957 Robert and sever other people left the company and founded Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation. For some time Robert enjoyed the success, but then he left with Gordon Moore at the age of 41 and founded Intel.
4) Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn
Hoffman started with a networking website, Socialnet. Reid Hoffman believed that cracking out the ultimate matching algorithm can guarantee him success. He pushed the website with massive ads in the newspapers and magazines. But the idea didn’t found any traction. Feeling disappointed he left the job and joined PayPal. At the age of 35, Hoffman founded LinkedIn which was made public when Reid Hoffman was 43 years old.
Today, LinkedIn is the greatest social networking site for job seekers and resource hunters. With struggle, consistency, and dedication, the company is running successfully till date.
5) Wally Blume, Denali Flavors
No idea is crazy. It is all about finding an opportunity and turning it into a business. Does tomato-flavored ice cream make you vomit? If not, you’re not alone. In 1995, a crazy gentleman in his 50’s initiated this crazy idea and dumped his full-time job to lay the foundation for a crazy ice-cream company.
Wally Blume founded Denali Flavors where he tested the most unimaginable ice-cream flavors and introduced more than 70 flavors. If you’re thinking this sounds crazy. Well, listen to this. This crazy idea helped Wally to earn $80 million in just one year. And the best part, he was strong till the age of 70.
6) Carol Gardner, Zelda Wisdom
Not every failure leads to suicide. Sometimes a failure can lead you to start a company and make million dollars out of it. When Carol Gardner was 52 she was depressed and divorced. When Carol won a Christmas card content at a local community this gave birth to Zelda Wisdom – a greeting card company.
As for the year 2010, Zelda Wisdom is worth around $50 million dollars which is a clear example of breaking the myth of age when it comes to starting a company after the age of 50.
To start the business is easy, to keep it running is the real deal. Success and failure go side by side when you start a business from scratch. The only thing that you need to worry about is to stay consistent with your idea and keep up the hard work. To age is just adding some wrinkles on the skin. The real age is the age of the soul. If you’re young from the inside, this is all that counts on the outside.