What is the main message of Founded After 40?

The main message of Founded After 40 is that age is not a barrier to starting a successful business.

Who is the author of Founded After 40?

The author of Founded After 40 is Glenda Shawley.

Entrepreneurship

Founded After 40 Book Summary - Founded After 40 Book explained in key points

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Founded After 40 summary

Name: Founded After 40
Rating: 3.7 (108 reviews)
Author: Glenda Shawley

Glenda Shawley

How to Start a Business When You Haven't Got Time to Waste

3.7 (108 ratings)

19 mins

Brief summary

'Founded After 40' by Glenda Shawley is a motivating guidebook for entrepreneurs who started their business later in life. It explores the benefits and challenges of launching a business after 40, providing valuable insights and tools to succeed on the journey.

Topics

Start-Ups Small Businesses

Table of Contents

Founded After 40
Summary of 7 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 7

What’s in it for me? Find your mid-life renaissance.

It’s perfectly normal to get nervous about reaching the big 4-0. With age comes added responsibilities, and it can seem increasingly less likely that you’ll ever be able to strike out on your own and start a business, should you want to do so. But despite the conventional narrative of a mid-life crisis, your forties can also be a decade of discovery, with plenty of scope for personal growth. By forty, you probably have a good understanding of what you want out of your working life – and what you don’t.

So how can you turn this period of your life into an opportunity for renewal?

That’s where these blinks come in. They’ll take you through business basics step by step, giving you the confidence and know-how to become your own boss and discover how you can make meaningful work your everyday reality. From finding your ideal customer to pricing your products, to building a reputable brand, these blinks are your essential guide to a fresh start in later life.

Read on to discover

why your brand is like an iceberg;
how you can hire the right people; and
what pricing strategy to use.

You’ll never have a thriving business until you understand why you’re in business.

In 1992, the author, business consultant Glenda Shawley, was making a decent income from freelancing, doing everything from helping people perfect their resumes to teaching and writing articles for trade magazines. But although Glenda was a freelancer, she hadn’t yet started her own business. Why was that? Well, it’s because she didn’t have a clear understanding of why she was doing things.

Like many of us, Glenda wanted to start her own business for a couple of simple reasons: she needed to provide for her family financially, and she also wanted more than just family activities in her life. While perfectly valid, this why wasn’t a good foundation for her business.

In addition to liking your products and your prices, customers will patronize your business rather than your competitors’ because they feel they share your why. Glenda wanted to provide for her family, but why would this matter to her potential customers, or inspire them to support her?

Consider a physiotherapist, for example, whose why is enabling her clients to live lives free of pain. It’s a motivation that her potential clients will share, and this shared goal will encourage them to see her over other physiotherapists motivated solely by profit.

The right why will also give you a clearer idea of which work to say yes to. With her concise and effective why in mind, our physiotherapist knows exactly which work suits her and which would be better off in the hands of someone else. That means that this will be clear to others, too, and those in her network, from health professionals to friends, will know exactly which clients they should send her way.

Glenda, on the other hand, had no clear motivation beyond money, so she found herself taking on any work that paid well. This was exhausting – and confusing, too. People in her professional network struggled to understand exactly what it was that she did, and had little idea what sort of clients or work they should refer to her. Understanding this problem helped Glenda get specific, and her why is now to help individuals launch their own businesses.

To find the why that’s right for you, try to uncover what you’re passionate about, or what your unique strengths are. People often try to answer these questions alone, but it can also be helpful to get input from your friends and family; your core attributes are often such an integral part of you that you stop seeing them, but they usually stay visible to those who know you well.

Understanding some business fundamentals can help you avoid common pitfalls.

Once you’re confident about your reasons for starting your own business, it’s tempting to charge ahead with your exciting new venture. But before you do, you need to understand some fundamental principles of good business.

When you’re starting out, it may seem like a good idea to make what you do appealing to everyone. After all, if everyone likes your products or services, then you’ll have plenty of potential customers, right?

Identify your ideal customer and find out what they really think about your business.

Now that you know some of the pitfalls to avoid, it’s time to start thinking about your ideal customers. This is a group of people at whom your products or services are aimed. When identifying your ideal customers, it pays to target a niche that’s both narrow and deep.

Take mothers, for example. They’re certainly a niche, but considering how many mothers there are in the world, they’re a very wide one. But what about a business aimed at solving the problems of mothers with babies under three months old? Targeting a narrow niche like this means that you can tailor your company’s language to appeal to the particular people to whom you want to sell. You can advertise in spaces where they congregate, too, whether virtually or offline – local cafes popular with parents, or online parenting forums, for example.

Consistent, values-focused branding is vital to the success of your business.

How did you choose the last car you bought? When she was younger, the author wouldn’t buy a car made by Skoda, as they have a reputation for breaking down. But she wouldn’t have chosen a Volvo either, thanks to their middle-aged, family-friendly image.

Considerations like these show how important branding is, and if you want your business to be successful, you’ll need to craft your brand carefully, too.

Turn a profit by implementing the right pricing strategy.

No matter how noble your reason for starting your business, you’ll still need to turn a profit. One advantage of founding a company when you’re over forty is that you’ll likely have some experience managing finances, even if it’s just your household budget. Nonetheless, for many first-time entrepreneurs, crunching the numbers is the most daunting part of launching a business.

Luckily, a little forethought about your finances can go a long way.

Put your customers’ needs at the center of your business right from the beginning.

For many of us, founding a business when we’re over forty is a tantalizing prospect; you can finally be your own boss, fit your working hours around your family life, and choose how and when you work. But if you’re counting on this scenario, then think again. It’s natural to want your business to revolve around you, but it’s vital that your customers’ needs, rather than your own, be at the heart of everything you do.

Making your company customer-centric requires you to consider your customers’ journey all the way through your business, starting from the moment they become aware that it exists. Many business owners make the mistake of simply identifying their ideal customers, setting a price point that should appeal to them, and then expecting those customers to form an orderly line. But it’s not quite as easy as that.

Find the right person to help with your business.

Being in your forties has its perks, like feeling wiser and more confident than you did in your twenties. Becoming a mid-life entrepreneur can carry a downside, though, in that you likely don’t have as much energy as you did in previous years.

This doesn’t need to be a problem, as long as you understand when to bring in help. Your fledgling business may feel like a baby you couldn’t entrust to anyone else, but it’s important to recognize when an extra pair of hands is needed.

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What is Founded After 40 about?

Founded After 40 (2017) examines the opportunities and challenges that present themselves to the later-life entrepreneur. Packed with practical advice and illuminating examples, these blinks are an essential guide to starting a thriving business at any age.

Founded After 40 Review

Founded After 40 (2021) by Glenda Shawley is a book that explores the journey of starting a successful business later in life. Here's why this book is worth reading:

It offers inspiring stories of individuals who found entrepreneurial success after the age of 40, proving that it's never too late to follow your passion.
With practical tips and advice on overcoming challenges and turning ideas into profitable ventures, this book provides valuable insights for aspiring entrepreneurs.
The author's authentic and relatable voice makes the book engaging and relatable, ensuring that it is definitely not boring.

Who should read Founded After 40?

Mid-lifers seeking new horizons
New entrepreneurs looking for advice
Small-business owners wanting a fresh perspective

About the Author

Glenda Shawley has been a successful small-business owner for over two decades. As a fully accredited business advisor, Shawley specializes in helping new businesses get up and running, and has worked with a wide range of ventures, including web designers, alternative medicine therapists, and home-based solo entrepreneurs.

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