old cats rock
DESCRIPTION
WIT 2011 DebateTRANSCRIPT
Old Cats Rock!
Why young people don’t know squatAND
Actually THEY suck at startups
Who would you trust?
• Timothy in College • Bi Ying in College
Credentials Startup Success
• Timothy
• 10+ under my belt.• Shhh modesty
prevents me from listing them here…..
• OK here’s one – a small online travel agency from the Seattle area
• Bi Ying
• Well she has worked damned hard.
• That would be … one?
These Guys Know Startups
“Research that my team conducted, based on a survey of 549 entrepreneurs in high-growth industries, showed that the average founder of a high-growth company launched his venture at age 40. We also learned that these founders are likely to be married and have two or more kids. They typically have six to ten years of work experience and real-world ideas. They simply got tired of working for others and wanted to rise above their middle-class heritage.”
”…Younger CEOs are probably easier to push around. Wet-behind the ears and inexperienced, young CEOs are probably far more likely to sign onerous term sheets out of sheer gratitude for getting funded. Old guys know better than to sign a term-sheet loaded with a nasty double-trigger option acceleration that would consign the founders to indentured servitude for years after a liquidity event.”
There’s More
• ….entrepreneurs in their late 20s and early 30s did create the most new businesses, as usual. But the under-35 cohort made up just 19.1 percent of "total entrepreneurial activity,“ Global Entrepreneurship Monitor,
• ….between 1995 and 2005, when venture capitalists were plentiful in Silicon Valley, the 20-to-34 age bracket produced fewer companies than older age brackets did. The average age of a tech startup founder was not 19 or 27 but a respectable 39. And there were twice as many entrepreneurs older than 50 than younger than 25. Kaufman Foundation
• …older… better at actualizing their business plans, finding adequate funding, keeping their young companies going, and creating new jobs. Young people might start more companies. But check in a few years later, and it is the older entrepreneurs' companies that are still around Kaufman Foundation
Who would you trust?
• Timothy Now • Bi Ying Now
Success in Startup land is…
• Pure Intellectual Horsepower
• A great freekin’ idea• Customers • Contacts• Money• Luck• A great team
• Experience• Context• Understanding• Passion• Patience• Cojones• Hard Work
YOUTH IS A WONDERFUL THING. WHAT A CRIME TO WASTE IT ON CHILDREN.
George Bernard Shaw
