by raptrex on 5/12/10, 5:50 AM with 12 comments
by Jun8 on 5/12/10, 6:33 AM
> Ms. Keng has several advantages in pursuing her entrepreneurial ambitions, including her father, a venture capitalist who splits his time between Beijing and Cupertino and gave her $100,000 in seed money.
Hmm, so that partly explains it. However, younger "kids" still hold the upper hand in this domain. Yes, yes, you gain more experience as you get older, etc. But I think there's a huge stigma associated with an older founder, the thinking going like "Well, if he is founder material, he would've done it earlier." I mean, look at the photos on our very own YC page, can you see anyone older than, say, 25, other than the speakers?
Of course, the dearth of older founders may be a good thing: you can think of ideas that may not occur to younger competitors, e.g. monitoring personal health. Still, I'm kicking myself for not being more like Ms. Keng, 20 years ago.
by yardie on 5/12/10, 9:17 AM
Show me the young entrepreneur that raises capital by washing cars on weekends, selling lemonade, or busting ass at McDonalds. I'd have a startup too if money wasn't a problem, I had daddy's connections and could get my startup featured in yahoo.
Anyway, everytime I see these "youth-targeted" websites I think, limited appeal to a slowly shrinking demographic. Whose sole existence is to be acquired by a facebook or yahoo because they haven't developed a longterm strategy.
by thinkdifferent on 5/12/10, 8:02 AM
You can't consider her a normal 18-year old.
I'm 27 but I live in Italy, with blue collars parents. I discovered the startup world and began thinking it can be done only recently.