Ojas is a 16 year old entrepreneur from Agra who started his career at the 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.


From January to June, 109 startups were launched in the Delhi-NCR region, followed by 63 in the tech-capital Bangalore and 44 in financial hub Mumbai. According to experts, this rise of the startup culture in Delhi-NCR was built on the back of a robust digital ecosystem, government support and private infrastructures like accelerators, VC firms and incubators. Yet, it can also be argued that the rise in the number of startups is a consequence of the larger market base that Delhi-NCR offers.

However, there seems to be a dearth of older entrepreneurs in the Indian ecosystem that is largely filled with young counterparts. And so, the question to ask is whether there’s a right age to start a business. If we take a look at some of the most successful entrepreneurs - Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and Michael Dell were all in their early twenties or late teens 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.

Across the globe and in India, more and more young people are launching their own startups

So, are these success stories really the norm, or do they grab headlines the world over because they are rarities? Well, the answer lies in the numbers.

Across the globe and in India, more and more young people are launching their own startups. This may be attributed to the teenage success stories that we touched upon earlier. In fact, in countries like the UK, the number of people that were under 35 and launching their own business had risen by approximately 70 percent 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. 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 startup 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 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.
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.

To sum it up, all the big ventures start from small beginnings. There's 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. You just have to make something which people need and love.