When it comes to founding Internet startups, age is more than a number

By Navneet Malhotra Picture a consumer Internet startup, founded by people in their forties. Did you have a hard time imagining? After all, majority of consumer Internet startups have founders in their twenties or early thirties. Some of these youngsters are dropouts, but majority have taken the entrepreneurship plunge after working for a few years. My wife Ritu and I co-founded an online home décor platform in our late forties and at the peak of our professional careers. When we graduated from the architecture school and started working, firms had one computer if they were really tech-savvy, and most of the work was done using physical tools and implements. We are the classic digital immigrants and as per popular wisdom, not naturally-suited to start a business where millennials ruled the roost. Seven months later, we are on our way to success – our monthly visitors count is quickly growing and many popular furnishing brands have already chosen to partner with us. The journey has been enthralling, but not as challenging as we were told it would be. With the benefit of hindsight, we can list several advantages of starting up late in your career. Deep Domain Knowledge One of the biggest advantages that experience bestows is deep domain knowledge, something that can make all the difference if you can find use for this knowledge in your startup. Ritu and I have 26+ years of experience as professional architects, and this experience has given us unmatchable insights into how people think, behave and act when they are thinking of home décor and renovation. Our early success is a direct result of weaving and integrating these insights into the user experience. Financial stability Financial security is often a byproduct of having a long and stable career spanning over two decades. For us, this meant that we could pool in our resources and bootstrap, giving us limitless strategic and operational freedom to create a sustainable, healthy business. Sure, early-stage capital is far more easily accessible in today’s startup boom and after a point one needs external capital for realizing the full potential of an Internet enterprise, but bootstrapping your venture is a strategic choice that all entrepreneurs should consider. Network It is always easier to start a business and sustain it in an industry where you’re well-enmeshed in its ecosystem. Knowing other fish in the pond equips an entrepreneur with an unmatched sense of security and confidence that you have friends who will look out for you, and help you along as you nurture a fledgling startup. Our success is built upon the kindness of our friends and professional contacts we have made over our professional journey of 26+ years. To illustrate, we have created a database of home design professionals on our platforms within weeks, and with little effort. For a person with little background in the industry, creating such a database would have taken months, if not years. Most of these professionals are our friends or acquaintances from the industry. Maturity Age and experience bestow maturity to make better decisions, even if they are made quickly. Experience helps develop your sense of intuition – knowing instinctively what will work and what won’t – and save you from the trouble of making many of the mistakes that can prove hugely expensive for a young startup. Leadership Startups need high-potential teams to grow quickly and a right type of leadership to unite and rally these teams into making the impossible possible. Decades of experience working with different types of people teaches you how to motivate and inspire your teams into giving their best at their jobs everyday. Also, it is critical for a startup’s team to believe in the vision of the founders, and our experience in the design and architecture industry has gone a long way in building our team’s trust in us. Ability to connect the dots As Steve Jobs famously said, you can only connect the dots backwards, never forward. Having worked with thousands of clients, we understood what people actually wanted, even when they were not able to easily articulate their need. To illustrate, we observed how people came to us with pictures of great home designs snipped from Indian and International magazines, Internet and even clicked at friends’ homes and hotel rooms. We realised they were missing a single great destination for great pictures, and thought of giving them just that. Many other features are also borne out of connecting the dots we had acquired over the years. As it turns out, what many thought would be a challenge for us emerged to be our greatest strength. The author is Co-Founder and Chief of Alliances, Renomania.