11 Compelling Reasons Why It’s Not Too Late To Start a Business at 50+

When I turned 50 I had to do some deep thinking and soul-searching because I was at a crossroads in my life.

My two boys were 15 and 18 at the time and were starting to carve out lives for themselves, and I wasn’t in employment or had a little home business on the go.

I knew I couldn’t go back into employment as my menopause symptoms made this option a non-starter for me, and the chance of finding an office-based job at 50 would prove to be very difficult anyway.

So I knew that my best option would be to start a home business (again) but the question “Is it too late to start a business at 50?” kept springing up in my mind.

I did a lot of soul-searching and deep thinking, along with some online research, and this provided me with hard evidence that women aged 50+ were starting small businesses and rocking it.

So if you’re wondering “Is being 50 years old to old to start a business?”, then you’re going to love this blog post.

If you’ve just landed on this website for the first time and you don’t know me, I invite you to read about all my home business ventures over the past 25 years.

So as you can read on my about page, I ended up starting over again at the age of 50. I was 51 when I found my dream home business, and I want you to find your dream home business too – especially now that you’re in your fabulous fifties!

Here are eleven reasons why being a woman in your fifties is the best time to start a small business from home.

1) Look at The Facts

When I did some research (the very academic way by ‘Googling’ :)), one of the first articles I came across was in Forbes. It was by a senior writing contributor of Forbes, Bianca Barratt, who specifically writes about women in business and women in work.

start a business at 50

When reading the article, I learned that there is an abundance of women in their fifties starting businesses and making a big impact in the world – it’s just that it’s not being highlighted and so not many people are aware of this new phenomena.

Nobody really talks about midlife women starting businesses (small and large) and that they’re actually rocking it.

Now, I know that a lot of these successful 50+ year old women are real high-flyers and are true entrepreneurs, and I certainly don’t put myself in that class, but this information and real-life facts did give me hope and spur me on to knuckle down to find and start a small home-based business.

Because I figured that if these amazing women aged 50+ can create all of that success in the big business world, I could certainly do this on a much smaller scale and run a little business from home, even now that I was 50.

So with this in mind, another sentence which immediately popped out at me was this:

“Research shows that entrepreneurs in their 50s and over are twice as likely to be successful as those in their 20s – something that can be put down to one main factor: experience.”

And this is uncannily true because I could never have started this website in my twenties, I had to wait until I was in my fifties with all my home business experience behind me!

So I didn’t have to feel like a failure anymore because of all my mediocre and failed home businesses behind me, I could use all of this experience and knowledge and turn it into a new business venture – which is why I created Her Dream Business.

2) Clarity & Purpose

I don’t know about you, but now at 54 I definitely know what I don’t want.

I think it’s easier to know what you don’t want than what you do want out of your life at 50+

You’ve probably had some kind of crap in your life and you’re now thinking, well, I definitely don’t want that to happen again!

So when you know what you don’t want, this leaves an open path to help you clarify with certainty what you do want, and you’ll also know what drives you.

So when it comes to setting up a small business from home, you’ll have a better understanding of the path and direction you want it to go in.

3) Empty Nest

If you’ve had children, they’re probably at adult age now.

You’re likely to have an empty nest and you still feel that you need to fill that void.

I’ve got two sons, aged 19 and 22, and they still live at home. But even though they’re still here, they have their own lives to live and so I now have all this new ‘free’ time to invest in myself.

I’m using this new freedom by running this Her Dream Business blog and doing more self-care stuff.

4) Experience & Wisdom

I’ve already briefly touched on this but you have so much more experience in your 50s than what you did in your 20s or 30s.

You have experience in:

  • The work-place
  • Home life
  • Family life
  • Relationships

… and so much more.

And with experience and age, comes wisdom.

And so experience + wisdom becomes a powerful duo combination where you can learn on and share these experiences with others inside your chosen business model.

5) Great Multi-Taskers

Women are renowned for their multi-tasking skills. This is a great quality and strength to have in business as you literally have to be very versatile and wear many different hats to any type of business.Start a business at fifty

Women are good multi-taskers because they tend to be methodical thinkers and logically work out and juggle the tasks ahead. Women need to be good at multi-tasking as they are primarily responsible for the smooth running and functioning of their household first and foremost, then business comes second.

Whether this be naturally in-built or is something that us women learn from an early age no one knows for sure, but it’s certainly a great asset to have.

6) Good Leaders

This is becoming more increasingly apparent as we are now seeing more women politicians and more business CEOs.

There has also been a lot of analysis and research into the different ways men and women carry out their roles as leaders, and upon reading the two articles below from CBS News and Forbes, I see that women came out on top. Why is this?

Well, according the article in Forbes, women make better leaders because they have strengths in communication, empathy, clearer vision, a better perspective and a mature approach and being able to think long-term.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/friedaklotz/2011/11/08/why-women-make-better-leaders/

7) An Open, Friendly Communicator

Women come over as more sincere than their male counterparts which, in-turn, makes them more open and friendly communicator as people are more willing to listen to them.

I don’t mean to be derogatory about men as obviously most men are sincere, but in business, men tend to be more pushy and not as ‘friendly’ as women.

This comes down to the different psychology between men and women. Women view many things differently than men and communication is one of those differences. So how do women communicate differently than men?

Women are a lot more open than men therefore they share their thoughts as well as the information being presented. Women tend to ‘think out loud’ which is a great communication medium because this can open up other discussions. This ‘openness’ gets the task or opportunity in hand discussed and dissected at deeper levels which covers all angles and gets the job done fully.

8) Non-Intimidating

Some men in business tend to lead with an intimidating approach which is not how you win and influence people to join your team.

Honestly, I can remember when I lived alone in my flat aged 25 and (stupidly) let a kitchen salesman in – I don’t know why as I definitely couldn’t afford a new kitchen. He sat on my sofa and watched the football I had on the TV for over half an hour (yes, I like football) and I couldn’t get rid of him. I actually started to feel scared – but he did eventually go.

It’s these types of business men which give most men in business a bad reputation.

I think men feel as if they have to be ruthless (intimidating) in order to succeed, but women go with a different approach.

Most women on the other hand have a natural non-intimating approach to communicating and sharing information with others. Women try to ‘be-friend’ new people first before they approach them as a potential customer or client.

I think that this is one of the main reasons why women are surfacing to the top in business today, as we are just more approachable.

9) Natural Nurturer’s

Although there is no scientific evidence to suggest that women have a biological in-built natural nurturing instinct, in general, women to tend to have a more friendly, welcoming and nurturing approach to making people feel comfortable and at ease in their company.

But surely most women have some kind of ‘natural nurture’ which prepares them for motherhood.

10) The Right Kind of Motivation

Motivation is everything in self-employment, but there are different kinds of motivation to make you strive to be successful.

For women aged 50+, motivation to succeed will include:

  • Wanting to quit work and be your own boss.
  • Wanting to quit work because of menopause.
  • Filling your empty nest with a new project.
  • Wanting to work part-time and semi-retire.
I actually call this type of motivation as finding your WHY. Why do you want to start a home business and which why will keep you motivated to succeed?

Whereas most men cannot help but be ‘in competition’ with each other which isn’t always the best type of motivation to have in business.

11) Quick Learners

The ability to learn new things quickly is a great trait to have in starting a small business from home, as you can grow your businesses at a faster level. With the right kind of motivation coupled with the willingness and eagerness to learn, are why the majority of women are successful in business.

Again, this comes down to not claiming that they already know everything and not having an egotistical attitude, but having the willingness to learn new things and then take their new learning’s on board and running away with them to the highest levels.

So, what do you think?

Are you now convinced that being 50+ is definitely not too old to start a business?

The great thing is that you don’t have to start some big business and change the world, you can start a small business from home and still earn big money!

What Next?

Here are more of my blog posts which will help you decide if running a home-based business is right for you now that you’re in your fifties: