As you get older it becomes harder to start a business, simply because of financial concerns.

As a just-graduated poor student I was used to living on practically nothing. By 40 I had a mortgage, kids, wife etc. The penalty-for-failure at that age is substantial.

When I stopped getting a salary in my 20s my wife was earning so we just lived on her salary. That lasted a few years until the new business found its niche.

So, how to start a business later in life? Slowly and carefully. First do it as a side hustle. Night's and weekends. (Which is good to see if you still gave the energy for that.)

Price things "as if its full time". If you're selling ceramics on Saturdays figure out what your daily sales need to be and price accordingly. If you're teaching piano ditto.

Side hustles also let you experiment with marketing. See if the market will bear more than just a Saturday here or there.

When you can, take a paid vacation from your day job, and see how busy you are (and what income) from the eide hustle. Figure out if you enjoyed that more than the day job.

Save every penny from the dide hustle. You'll want at least 6 months of cash before you make the leap. 3 months to get income back up, 3 to look for a new job if it fails.

It's harder to start a new thing in your 40s. But it's also more likely to succeed, IF you plan and execute right.

This is true if you require the same amount of income to maintain your lifestyle, but if you've been working in tech for 20 years, you have savings. I'm not in my 40s yet, but it's much more viable for me to take a risk now than it was when I was just starting out because I can afford to fail for a couple years without, you know, becoming homeless.

This so much.

I'm 36 and I can afford to not work for many years with my savings.

It's definitely easier now for me.

I wish. My savings are all going to go into a house, kids' college, and my retirement. Not everyone on HN is making $300-500k TC for a decade before having their first child.

Using savings when younger can significantly increase your overall retirement age. There, however, is also a risk of not starting a company in time (or having enough time to complete and perhaps exit a business) by waiting until you are fully retired. How one wants to slice that risk to reward ratio is up to them. My option is the higher parent's one, starting side hustles until slowly they take over my main income, such that I feel no loss of quality of life and I'd still retire when I want to. It is akin to rolling green-blue deployments rather than shut-down-the-server deployments.

While I also consider myself lucky, not everyone works as a software engineer earning high salaries. Being older also (usually) means more responsibilities and less tolerance for risk.

Very true, I think that while my savings are very good, I would have much less risk tolerance if I had kids.

I wish we had an online space for talking to people with these concerns. Its much different for a single guy - he can make his 100k savings last years, specially if allowed to go back living with family.

You can do this if you're in US, salaries elsewhere for tech jobs are more inline with salaries for specialized professions (doctors, lawyers). They're still larger than other jobs but it goes nowhere near the levels of western/eastern US (exceptions exist ofc).

Then there's a question when you start a family, that's subjective and something you can control but the model of creating career and then having kids (in late 30s/early 40s) seems more common in US. If you have your first child in mid 30s, then few laters 2nd one for example, you still need to be very hands-on, attentive and provide at least until your late 40s/early 50s.

You have a much better idea of what demand is tangible and grounded, which means you are in a great position to start a bootstrapped small business. Some people have been calling them boring businesses which is actually pretty exciting to me, since they are tangible machines you can put work into.

All my attempts at starting a SaaS when I was younger were basically me building a cool thing and then yelling into the wind. I am looking for a more concrete market for my next venture, and it doesn't have to be cool or cutting edge.

Man you gotta get outside more often. Most of the world doesn't work in tech and has for thousands of years and surprise doesn't suffer from a new level of contempt for their fellow human.

GP didn’t actually mention what kind of business (B2B or B2C, tech or another sector) — the description was broad enough to encompass my IP licensing business, which is about as tech-focused as it gets.

Lol hell yeah brother my local coffee shop regulars are well known for being the dredges of society.

Coffee shop? Customers fine, but health inspectors and rent increases are your antihero. As well as too much competition.