We often celebrate young founders and admire the daring entrepreneurs who launch businesses before going to college. But maybe our perception is backwards: Could it be that it’s actually easier to start a company before starting a family and taking up other responsibilities?
For a single data point, starting my first company at the age of 18 felt surprisingly easy. Sure, I was struggling because of my lack of experience, and nobody took me quite seriously at the negotiating table either. But it wasn’t a hard decision to start the company—it’s not like anyone else would have hired me to do anything remotely interesting anyway.
And at 18, the psychological burden to be great is minimal: When the general expectation is for you to fail, the only way to go is up.
When a friend of mine got poor grades in college, he would say “I wasn’t even trying.” We all know a guy like him: Before an exam or on the night of an important deadline, he would make sure he was either at a party, out on a date, or otherwise unavailable for his studies. He always had a good excuse when he failed a test, but by his logic, he didn’t actually fail, because his true abilities remained untested.
Starting a business in your 30s is a whole different enterprise than starting one as a teenager. Of course, it’s still easy to find excuses when things are not........