Third Age Entrepreneurs drive start-up successes

A research report from Nesta has highlighted the importance of older people in enterprise activity in the UK. Entrepreneurs aged 50-65 years created 27 per cent of successful start up companies in the UK between 2001 and 2005, according to the research which has just been released (somewhat late?).

Lots of interesting and useful findings from the report for students taking units which require them to understand the motivation of entrepreneurs, their business objectives and the factors that determine the viability of the start-up. I was particularly taken with the comment that:

“Third Age Entrepreneurs are highly motivated by the desire to give something back to society and only half said they intended to retire after reaching 65 years old”. Quite right too.