Sometimes the biggest insults are meant as compliments.
“How brave – a woman of your age setting up her own business!” said two 30-something male bankers when I explained to them that at 50, I had just founded a media company.
They weren’t being intentionally rude – we’d been chatting and they asked what I did. But that comment spoke volumes about how older entrepreneurs – and particularly 50-plus female ones – are viewed.
It’s challenging being a female business owner, whatever your age. Women receive less than 2pc of all venture capital (VC) handed out to emerging businesses – older women get an even tinier fraction of that.
Yet the Rose Review into female entrepreneurship found that if women founded businesses at the same rate as men, it would add a staggering £250bn to UK Plc.
It has never been more important to tackle the sexist and ageist attitudes around funding and entrepreneurship which are holding too many female founders back.
These kinds of views are particularly unwelcome and unhelpful because they are so spectacularly misguided. The truth is that older entrepreneurs like me, in their 50s and beyond, are not only setting up companies at a faster rate than any other demographic, but data from the UK and US shows we are more likely to be successful when we do.
According to Brilliant Minds, a new VC fund which focuses on older entrepreneurs, businesses founded by those aged 55-64 have a success rate that is three times higher than that of entrepreneurs aged 20-34.
The biggest study on this so far, from researchers from MIT, Wharton and the US Census bureau, shows that the likelihood of success actually increases with age from 42 (the average age of start-up founders) until the age of 60.
They found that the older you get, the more likely your chances of success are – a 50-year-old is twice as likely to build a thriving enterprise that has either an IPO or a successful acquisition than a 30-year-old.
This makes sense – most successful older founders have worked in other jobs in the area of their business before starting their venture. The insights they’ve gleaned from long experience are key to their flourishing.
Here in the UK there is a similar picture. Virgin StartUp, which offers advice and access to funding and mentoring, reports that over-50s are one of their fastest growing age groups.
And it’s not just midlifers – Age UK reports that the number of self-employed over 65-year-olds has doubled in the last five years.
The rise of ‘Queenagers’
So what is the attraction? I started my own business, Noon, because I could see how underserved older women were by the current media landscape. After 30 years as an award-winning editor, and as chair of Women in Journalism UK from 2014 to 2021, I could see there was a gap in the market to address a new, more dynamic kind of midlife woman.
When I was made redundant – abruptly and horribly just before the pandemic – I decided I didn’t want to work for someone else ever again.
I set up a platform to help women reinvent themselves at 50, help them through the inevitable pinch points of midlife – divorce, bereavement, redundancy, dealing with elderly parents and young adults struggling with mental illness – and launch them into a sunny new chapter.
I knew there was a big gap in the market for such an inspirational site because when I was whacked and I was looking around for somewhere which might help me, I drew a blank. The HMRC website was not the kind of upbeat transformational content I was looking for.
Since we launched Noon in 2021, I have created a community of 40,000 midlife women. We run retreats, events, a jobs board and tours for who we call our “Queenagers”, and we also set up a consultancy to help organisations speak to this lucrative but under-served cohort.
We also help firms retain older women within their companies. If the 157,000 midlife women who left the workforce during the pandemic got back into employment, we would see £7bn added to the UK economy.
Becoming an entrepreneur at 50 is not all plain sailing. I was lucky to attract an angel investor right at the start who put up the £200,000 required to get the project off the ground. And I also had a redundancy settlement which covered some of my living costs, so like many boot-strapping entrepreneurs, I haven’t taken any kind of salary.
I’ve learnt the key to staying afloat is to have a core purpose – for me, that is changing the narrative about midlife women to something more optimistic and true. But you must be willing and able to pivot to where the opportunities are.
After working in a massive organisation, I love the freedom I have as an entrepreneur to try things quickly – and to ditch them if they don’t work without having to jump through endless hoops. I also love being the boss. Starting my own business at 50 is the most exciting and satisfying thing I have ever done.
‘I was told to pipe down and let the men talk’
During my work, I have come across many other midlife entrepreneurs, who have vastly different experiences and motivations.
Take Lyndsey Simpson, 46, who is the founder of 55 Redefined, which helps businesses to attract workers and consumers aged over 50.
“When I was running a recruitment business, one of my clients needed bankers from the 1990s to help with RBS/NatWest, and they were struggling to find older talent. I managed to encourage 400 people out of retirement, and many of them said to me that retiring was the worst decision they had ever made. They said for about a year it was fun to play golf and mooch about but then they became depressed by the lack of purpose.
“That gave me the idea for what I call ‘un-retirement’, getting older people back into work. But I discovered that the discrimination faced by over-50s was stark, so I set about challenging ageism and helping older workers back into jobs.
“My aim is to inspire today’s 50-plus generation to be bold and ignore the social limitations put upon them, to design life on their own terms. We should start talking about ages in levels – for instance I am Level 45 as it sounds more impressive. I can’t wait to master the levels ahead of me.”
Simpson has recruited an impressive roster of 80 global companies, including Publicis, Dentsu and the Bank of Ireland. How did she raise the money to get her idea off the ground?
She laughs. “I had a terrible time with VCs. At one meeting, I was told to ‘pipe down and let the men talk’, which was ridiculous, since it was my business! At another, the VCs kept referring to the companies they invested in as ‘guys’ and when I asked if he had any female investors or investments he said ‘no’. There was only one woman working in the entire firm.”
She swiftly gave up that route and raised private money from a “large number of female investors” and used cash from the sale of a previous business. She didn’t take a salary for the first 12 months, although she says that she “take[s] a living now”.
The company is turning over £1.4m a year and has just raised £3m to invest in a platform intended to educate companies around longevity. She has also been shortlisted for a Veuve Clicquot Bold Future award which celebrates entrepreneurship.
“This is a huge and expanding sector,” she says. “We are very ambitious about the future.”
‘My business completely fits around my life’
Not all midlife entrepreneurs are so gung-ho about world domination, however.
“This stage of my life is about creating a business which delivers the lifestyle I want, not seven-figure sums,” says Sarah Pittendrigh, 53. “I want to work a few days a month and have time to do the things I love,” she explains from the Yorkshire Show in her horsebox, acting as chief groom to her son who is a champion equestrian.
Pittendrigh set up her first business, Simply Bows and Chair Covers, from her kitchen table in Northumberland after facing bankruptcy when her son was small. She now has nine franchises – the company provides fancy table and seat covers for weddings and other events – and turns over more than £250,000 a year – she won a coveted Mumpreneur of the year award in 2015.
And the list goes on. She also has a property business – a £4m project creating 10 houses out of an old farm, and during Covid she established a coaching business for female entrepreneurs. “I met so many who were burning out, had self-limiting beliefs, who had achieved their business dreams but were so isolated and unhappy, so I decided to help them,” she says.
This mosaic of businesses creates an income which means she can live flexibly. “I earn £34,000 for 10 days’ work a month, leaving me free to ride my horses and travel around the shows with my son.”
She adds: “I’ve worked hard all my life – for me these days it is all about the passive income. Particularly since I had a cancer scare – these days the point of my businesses is to work to live not live to work.
“My ethos is all about priorities – what kind of a life do you want to lead? No one ever went to their grave wishing they’d spent more time in the office.”
But like many entrepreneurs, Pittendrigh can’t stop. She is in the process of creating yet another new enterprise for midlife female founders called More Boots than Heels.
“It’s for country-based entrepreneurs happier in their wellies than stilettos who want other women like them to have fun with, network and talk shop. We take them to boxes at Cheltenham or to Wimbledon. It costs £100 a month to join and is all about bringing like-minded founders together. It can be lonely at the top.”
‘If I fail, I won’t go to my deathbed thinking I haven’t tried’
Hilary Mines, 55, from Cheshire, is another midlife founder who is living her dream. In her 30s, she ran a successful wine bar, which she sold at the peak of the market and then founded a telecoms firm.
Five years ago, she sold that to manifest her life-long passion: Trundl, a “social business” which gets walkers to raise money for charities by clocking up the miles on her app.
So far, she and her community have raised more than £20,000 for charity by walking – she is aiming for her app to raise £50,000 a month for charities, with corporate partners including Sykes Holiday Lets and Oscar Pet Foods. Members pay £3.99 to sign up, and it will give 30pc of its income to charity.
She put the £120,000 from selling her company, plus some savings into the business.
“I could have put the money into property, but I decided to use it to fund Trundl without needing a bank loan or investor. Because I don’t have children or other dependents – I was in a relationship for 10 years but am single now – I don’t have to worry about supporting anyone else. I was free to put my capital into the business.”
Mines’ choice is one that increasing numbers of child-free midlife entrepreneurs are making (a quarter of university educated women aged 45-60 in the UK are child-free, 40pc by choice).
“My aim is for Trundl to be my lasting legacy,” she adds. “I decided to take a risk by backing myself and investing in Trundl, which is my dream. I reckon, if I fail, I won’t get to my deathbed thinking I hadn’t tried. And it’s my money so it is there to fund my dream and purpose.”
What I find so inspiring about these midlife female entrepreneurs is how they are taking their passion and purpose, and using it to solve the problems they see around them.
By creating businesses which serve these older women, “Queenager” entrepreneurs are filling a much-needed gap and growing UK Plc. They are also creating lives which suit them. Maybe you should join us?
Eleanor Mills is the founder and CEO of noon.org.uk and the author of Much More to Come: lessons on the mayhem and magnificence of midlife, published by Harper Collins on August 1.
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