After 27 years as an engineering program manager with the global medical technology company, Carline Bengtsson retired in September 2019. She launched her for-profit social enterprise in June 2020, despite the Pandemic.
She came up with the idea of connecting the dots. She and her husband loved to entertain at their home. Growing up in St. Paul, Minn., Carline would cook recipes that reflected her Jamaican roots.
In February 2012 she wrote a cookbook with the encouragement of her friends that included her mosaic recipes.
Her experience cashing in her remaining recognition points is reflected in the other dot. The points can be turned into gift cards or retail items. Feed My Starving Children is a nonprofit organization. She found out that 19 points would feed one child for 19 weeks.
She says that she needs to use her cooking to give back.
The payroll of the company is made up of herself and I. She is hired to come into the home of the host and serve a meal. She cooks one of her mosaic meals at the table.
One-quarter of the proceeds go to a charity chosen by the host. She is booked through August, 2022. She raises money for food organizations through partnerships.
The swelling ranks of 50-plus entrepreneurs, new small business owners, solopreneurs and self-employed are part of a large, growing and still deeply underappreciated movement. One-quarter of new entrepreneurs are 55 to 64 years old, compared with 15% in 1996.
With age, self-employment increases. The share of self-employment for workers under the age of 50 is less than 20%. The share goes up to 25% for ages 55 to 59, 46% for ages 65 to 69, and 68% for ages 75 to 79.
The exclusive club of high-octane venture capital backed businesses is dominated by older people. Four economists focus on the kind of companies that have large. Evan Spiegel, founder of the messaging appSnapchat and Jack Dorsey, co-founder of the micro-messaging serviceTwitter are both associated with youth. Conventional prejudice is wrong.
They say that age predicts success, but in a different way than many propose.
For a moment, think about that.
The vast majority of new businesses and social enterprises are not transforming ventures. They are mostly self-funded with self-employment popular. The purpose of the enterprise is to provide a paycheck to help pay the bills.
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Kerry Hannon writes in her book that older entrepreneurs are stepping into the start-up ethos. Others have been drawn into it because of the desire to pursue a dream or return to a childhood passion.
After moving from New Jersey to Florida with her husband four years ago, Dorr pursued her dream. She took on some part-time work to get to know the community and decide what she wanted to do next.
Dorr says that her husband asked if he was bored yet.
Dorr worked in the beauty industry for a long time. She decided to open a women's upscale clothing store that caters to locals rather than tourists. She had an entrepreneurial experience when she was 28 years old and it came in handy.
She found a retail space in the downtown area. The application to the owner was due on Friday after she came upon the space on Wednesday. She used her previous experience to quickly draft a business plan.
She didn't get the space initially, but she did when financing fell through for the business she was going to start. The business was opened in October 2020.
Dorr works six days a week and is having fun.
Stories like these are not highlighted enough in the entrepreneurial ecosystems that have developed in most metropolitan areas and towns around the country over the past 25 years.
Elizabeth Isele is a pioneer advocate for older entrepreneurs. The Global Institute for experienced entrepreneurship is one of Isele's many initiatives.
People would look at her like she was crazy when she talked about people starting their own businesses when they were 50 years old. But not enough.
The experienced-worker-turned-entrepreneur has an advantage over their younger peers. They have experience to draw on. They can use their creativity and practical wisdom to solve problems for customers.
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The biggest commitment for older entrepreneurs is time and energy, although they have some financial resources to start their business. They have developed networks that they can rely on for guidance and support.
They are willing to take risks, even more important than resilience.
Beverly is a risk taker. She worked in various management positions at Johnson & Johnson for more than three decades, with her last position being head of global supplier diversity and inclusion.
She had the idea for her business while working at J & J, but she put it off because of her demanding job. She started a company in Jacksonville, Fla. See Everyone is whatSEE stands for. She wasn't deterred by the Pandemic.
There will be time when I retire from J and J.
She is self-funding the business and has interest in investors in the wings. There are two major initiatives. Providing business advice, coaching and consulting to help firms grow while cultivating diversity and inclusion is the focus of the first. Many of her clients are women-owned and minority-owned.
Her other venture is a collaboration with a group of women-owned businesses and organizations that recently launched a collection of high-end clothing for women, with an ambition to expand its offerings into other parts of the clothing trade, including men.
This will be a global brand.
When it comes to midlife and late-life entrepreneurship, we're only at the beginning. It is one of the most hopeful economic and social messages to come out in recent years. If we really want to get the economy working for people of all ages, then society and public policy should focus more on unleashing the experience and accumulated human capital of older entrepreneurs-to-be.
You should retire with more money than you need.
Their businesses and social enterprises will provide an income and meaning in the second half of life, they will hire younger generations, and they will teach them the start-up ropes.
With 50-plus start-up owners in the forefront, entrepreneurship in America will grow. Isn't it sounds good?
Chris Farrell is a senior economics contributor for American Public Media. He is the author of "Purpose and a Paycheck: Finding Meaning, Money and Happiness in the Second Half of Life" and "Unretirement: How Baby Boomers Are Changing".
America's Entrepreneurs is a Next Avenue initiative made possible by the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation. NextAvenue.org and Twin Cities Public Television, Inc. granted permission to reuse the article.
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