The Leap - 6 Reasons to start a Business in Midlife

I’m sure you’ve seen one of those car bumper stickers or fridge magnets that says, “life begins at 40” (or 50 or 60). 

If, like me, you’ve been the recipient of one, it’s generally presented to you by a well-meaning friend or family member on a milestone birthday. You graciously accept it but quietly wonder what life really does have in store for you. More of the same old, same old, or the opportunity to follow a different path?

Starting their own business features frequently on the wish list of those who are entering midlife. There’s no hard and fast age when midlife begins. It’s in the eye of the beholder. However, for the purpose of this blog, let’s assume it starts from 40.

By 40, many people have assumed a level of personal and professional responsibilities and commitments that feel like huge impediments to starting a business. 

It takes a certain type of person to leave the sanctuary of a salary for the uncertain terrain of self-employment.

Nonetheless, there are no shortage of examples of people who choose to do exactly that. I use the word “choose” with caution as sometimes starting your own business is less out of choice and more through necessity. 

Either way, moving into self-employment in midlife is not for the faint hearted. There’s a lot of emotions to work through and people to reassure before making the leap.

On the one hand, you have strong forces pulling you back from the edge: financial; relationships; behavioural. The other hand is extending across the canyon, you can almost reach out and grasp it. It’s pulling you towards a new beginning. Step back or leap? What a decision to make!

In the years ahead, as the business landscape and work practices change, and technology automates more professional jobs, the decision to work for ourselves may be taken out of our hands.

Therefore, whether you’ve already made the leap or if you’re thinking of making it, there are an increasing number of reasons why it’s worth moving into self-employment.

Here are 6 to consider:

1. You’re underselling your knowledge & expertise

Your expertise and knowledge are badly needed beyond the “four walls” of your current employer.

The chances are that if you’ve put all of your eggs in one basket (i.e., working as an employee for one company), only a fraction of your knowledge and expertise is being utilised. 

While somewhat of a generalisation, it’s often the case that as we get older and our career advances, we cross the threshold from specialism to generalism. We are valued more for our experience, know-how and relationships. 

At some point after crossing this threshold, you experience a yearning to return to the specialism you’ve left behind or focus on a newer one that you’ve subsequently discovered. It’s “the thing” that you’re most passionate about. 

Deep down, you know that we’re underselling yourself and you’ll not be emotionally fulfilled until you’ve found a way of turning the “the thing” into a business that has your fingerprints all over it. 

1. A “Micro Niche” is waiting for you

The rapid growth in online platforms over the past decade, and the data that they hold on their users, is enabling businesses to develop highly targeted marketing campaigns. 

A Micro Niche is the term used to describe a very discrete group of people or businesses that share some common characteristics and behaviours that make them particularly strong candidates for a particular product or service. 

The beauty of micro niching as a strategy is its accessibility and suitability to businesses of all sizes. A large marketing budget isn’t needed. The opposite is true.

The more specific a business can be on who are the ideal customers for its products and services, and the clearer it is on how to connect with them, the less money needs to be spent on sales & marketing. 

Therefore, “Micro Niches” offer an opportunity for anyone to turn their expertise and passion for something into a successful business, no matter how quirky it might be.  

1. Funding is more available and accessible  

Access to funding to start a business is often stated as one of the main reasons why more people choose not to start their own business.

However, the convergence of climate change, COVID and an aging population has shifted the global economic tectonic plates, creating an urgent need to stimulate much greater levels of Research & Development (R&D), and product/service innovation.

Governments are responding to this urgency by increasing the levels of their GDP that are allocated to R&D, and innovation. 

In practical terms, this offers entrepreneurs with a good idea more opportunities to secure the financing needed to launch and grow their business. 

1. Your Community Needs You  

The face of the community that we live in is changing before our eyes. 

On the high street/main street, shops are closing with increasing frequency as they succumb to the double hammer blow of ecommerce and COVID.  

Cash strapped Local Authorities are having to make further cuts to their services. 

Unemployment or underemployment is rising and will likely continue to as the world begins the long recovery from the COVID pandemic. 

People within communities are living longer, and as they age, their support needs increase. 

Last but not least, every community is grappling with the consequences of climate change.

Building healthy, happy, prosperous, and sustainable communities in light of all of these challenges is going to be a huge task, one that will require new collaborations to be formed between the public and private sector. 

For these collaborations to be successful. innovation will need to be a key ingredient, supplied by local entrepreneurs who have the right blend of expertise, local knowledge, and desire to make a positive contribution to their community. 

On the part of local public sector bodies, their need to reinvert how they operate will require them to spend more of their budget with small businesses who have the ideas, mindset, and agility to make things happen quickly. 

This opens the door to the budding midlife entrepreneur who is settled in their community, is looking to work locally, and can bring much needed expertise to the table.

1. The benefits of working for a mid to large business are disappearing 

COVID has reshaped where and how we work, and there is no turning back. 

Indeed, it’s eliminating many of the traditional benefits of continuing to work for a mid to large size business. By midlife, and mid-career, many professionals have ascended the organisational hierarchy as high as they want to (or can do). 

If the years ahead are going to be dominated by remote management of people and projects, then it becomes less appealing to work for a larger business.  

o In fact, the risks of staying put may outweigh any remaining benefits. This recognising that in many of the sectors most negatively impacted by COVID, their priority over the next few years will be to remove more layers of management, and further flatten the ones that remain.  

Furthermore, the moment is arriving where organisations decide that the costs of hiring full time employees aren’t worth it anymore. More cost-effective to pull freelancers in on a project-by-project basis. 

1. The start-up costs are low

What does low actually mean? It depends on what sort of business you plan on launching. 

If it’s a capital-intensive business, then you’re likely going to require significant financial support. However, even so, borrowing rates are at near all-time lows, and lenders are trying to be as flexible as possible over their lending T&C’s recognising the need to support the recovery from COVID.

For online services businesses, like mine, the start-up costs are close to zero. All you need is a laptop and subscriptions to a small number of marketing and communications platforms. Apart from that, the main cost is your own time. 

While starting an online business from home and building a client base using online marketing and communications tools has been “standard operating procedure” in the entrepreneurial community for many years, it can still be daunting to those who are venturing into the space from the cocoon of corporate world. 

However, I foresee 2021 as the year when a large tranche of midlife professionals who have been jettisoned from corporate world take the plunge and start an online business, figuring that with access to the right support, they can rapidly flatten out the learning curve associated with setting up and growing an online business. 

Logical arguments on their own are unlikely to persuade anyone who is thinking of starting their own business to actually make the leap and do so. Heart and head need to be aligned. With that said, there will never be a perfect time when all of the stars align, the wind drops, and the hand stretches all the way across the canyon and takes a firm grip of your hand. 

Starting a business in midlife takes courage and a willingness to accept the reality that things might not work out as planned because there are so many determining factors outside of our control. If ever we need reminding of this, 2020 has done so. 

When we look back on the biggest decisions in our life, we find that committing to the decision and making the leap was the hardest part. Once on the other side, we discover that there many more helping hands than we ever thought possible.  

That’s the irony of “self-employment”. It’s one of the least selfish things that we can do in our life as our success is intertwined with the people that our business aims to serve.  

Maybe 2021 is the year when you make the leap?