According to a government survey, in Delhi -NCR region, 109 start-ups were launched between January & June. And 63 & 44 start-ups were launched in Bangalore & Mumbai. It was the government support, robust digital system, & private infrastructures like VC firms, accelerators & incubators, because of which these start-ups were made possible. However, this rise in the start-ups could also be resulted as a consequence of the larger market base that Delhi- NCR offers.

In India and across the globe, more and more young people are launching their own start-ups, which may be attributed to the teenage success stories that we touched upon earlier. In countries like the UK, the number of people that were under 35, which launched their own business had risen by approximately 70% between 2011 and 2016. Yet this rise in the number of young entrepreneurs could be attributed to the fact that they have a lot less to lose. Fact is that for those who have only just graduated from their educational institutions (mostly colleges and universities), the fear of failure simply does not exist.

As there seems to be a dearth of older entrepreneurs that is largely filled with young counterparts in the Indian ecosystem, so, the question to ask is whether there is a right age to start a business. Taking a look at some of the most successful entrepreneurs – Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and Michael Dell were all in their  late teens or early twenties when they launched their now billion dollar companies. And it would seem that this age bracket is the ideal position for any young entrepreneur, case in point: Snapchat’s Evan Spiegel and Dropbox’s Drew Houston.

For youngsters, there is often less at stake – loan repayments for example. However, it would be imprudent to not take into consideration the fact that the younger generation is also, more often than not, brimming with the kind of resilience and confidence that is often found in the youth. Due to this reason younger entrepreneurs and youngsters in general are more likely to take the kind of risks that the older generation may not necessarily opt for.

That being said and despite the focus on the young start-up success, it’s mostly the older generation which you will find is leading the way when it comes to owning their own businesses. The average age of an entrepreneur in the US is 40. In fact, what’s really important to understand here is that the older generation has a more stable foundation from which to launch. Besides, having spent quality years within the workplace, older entrepreneurs tend to be more financially stable & have a clearer vision of exactly what they wish to achieve. Moreover, they also have the added benefit of having been able to learn valuable business lessons while employed, in the sense that they have been able to learn from their mistakes when they were on the payroll.

In this regard, Ojas Batra, Founder and CEO of Hive Group of Companies said, “As all big ventures start from small beginnings, there is no such thing as starting early or being late, you’re old enough to start at 10 and young enough to start at 60. Get acknowledged that there is no finish line, only mile markers. Make something which people need, which people love.” Ojas Batra is a 16 year old entrepreneur from Agra who started his career at a tender age of 10. He calls himself a purebred entrepreneur, having successfully bootstrapped and sold 14 e-commerce stores based on the concept of Drop Shipping.

Despite all these factors and the arguments we saw on both sides of the spectrum, it can be concluded that age is indeed just a number- and a meaningless point of reference when it comes to bringing an idea to fruition. There are enough success stories on both sides of the table for us to reinforce this notion of age.

After all, companies don’t succeed because their Founders are young or old – they succeed because those founders have an idea for a product or service that solves a problem or need in the market.