How these Fintech Founders learned the disadvantages of being young

I met an iconic startup founder only once, he was about 20 years old, he was wearing a T-shirt, he was playing ping-pong in the coworking office all day and he stood there and typed his last Mac machine A few weeks ago he had founded his startup, which proved to be relatively successful from day one. I was very impressed because the boy's perspective and the solution he proposed were unique.

When I asked him to meet him again and I invited him to be part of a study that I conducted at that time, he was already out of business.The reason was pretty simple: his supplier refused further collaborations and my character could not convince him to do it. "Have you prepared your negotiation strategy before speaking with your partner?" I asked. "No, I did not think it was necessary," was his reply.

This could also happen to more enced. Unfortunately, for that boy, the lack of background was what killed him. He now works in a Stockholm company as an emerging expert in the realm of FinTech. I wish him a lot of luck and I think he will realize his idea (that's why I do not tell you what it is).

Founders In The Quarties

According to Stockholm FinTech Report 2018 The average age of the FinTech company's leaders in the Greater Stockholm region is between 36 and 40 years. Less than 10% are under 31 years old. The realm of FinTech is 40 (from 24 to 70). As for women, the average CEO is 43 (age group: 35 to 65). As you can see, this is far from the stereotype.

You can find more information about the founders of FinTech and the gender gap with this link .

Researchers at MIT, Kellogg's and the Entrepreneurship Initiative for Innovation and the USCensus Bureau have recently analyzed the age of all the founders of companies in the United States exploiting confidential administrative data sets of the United States Census Bureau. In their article published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, reveal their results. The average age of a founder of a US company is 42 years. Even when the data were filtered and the researchers focused only on companies granted a patent, they received an investment in venture capital, operating in an industry that employs a high percentage of STEM (Science, Technology ,

The spirit of global entrepreneurship

These figures may look slightly different if you consider the founders as well as FinTech, one of many other technology fields. In fact, they depend on the geographic region but much more on the level of development of the economy. In the latest report by the Global Entrepreneur Monitor, the authors showed the average age of entrepreneurs in three groups of countries.

They divided 54 states under three groups, according to the World Economic Forum classification. As they explain:

(…) the factor-driven phase is dominated by subsistence farming and mining activities, with a high dependence on work (unskilled) and natural resources. In the efficiency phase, an economy has become more competitive with more efficient production processes and higher product quality. As development progresses towards the innovation driven stage, businesses are more knowledgeable and the service sector expands (http://weforum.org). The economies in transition from the efficiency factor were pooled with factor-driven economies, while those in transition from efficiency to innovation were included in the efficiency-based category.

Based on this, they analyzed the populations of each country to calculate the rate of adult persons (18-64 years) and at the stage of the start-up process of a business or started a business less than 42 months before the survey.

As you can see, the data does not match exactly to the other studies. In fact, the difference in results between 25-34 and 35-44 groups is only 1%, regardless of the type of economy. This could be the result of methodological differences. However, the trend is the same: young adults are not leaders who start businesses in any group. Interestingly, the more the economy is advanced, the less the number of young entrepreneurs.

The authors of the Global Entrepreneur Monitor report 2017/2018 write:

The lowest differences between age groups are found in factor-based economies, confirming that the start-up of a business is an important road to be included in the economy for all people. The double rate of early entrepreneurial activity among young people aged 18 to 24 in factor-driven economies (16%) compared to innovation-driven economies (8%) could be further analyzed using data on involvement of young people in tertiary education, as well as including data on the motivational index (relationship between opportunities driven by improvement and need)
(…) Europe has the lowest TEA [Total early-stage entrepreneurial activity – individual who are starting or started their business in last 42 months – M.G.] of all the regions in all age groups, the highest percentage of theatrical entrepreneurs still belongs to the age groups 25-34 and 35-44 (10.9% and 10.17% respectively).

Apparently, according to the studies, the FinTech and startup prodigies have worked for other companies many years after graduation. This seems reasonable because they have had enough time to gain knowledge, experience and networking within the industry. But it is not the only road. You can also join a company founded by Peter Thiel the co-founder of PayPal. The program offers $ 100,000 grants to aspiring entrepreneurs, provided they are under 23 and leave school. And having ideas that can not absolutely wait.

Disclaimer:

Together with my colleagues who contributed to the "Fintech Report of Stockholm 2018", I am one of the authors of the study. You can read more about the report here and you can download the report for free here .

You can read my other posts on Forbes here.