Never Too Old to Get Rich

Part IVWinning Strategies of Female Entrepreneurs

Despite what you see on covers of magazines and case studies of Harvard Business School, the actuarial data is very clear: women over 50 are twice as likely to be as successful as other entrepreneurs,” Nathalie Molina Niño, CEO and founder of BRAVA Investments, told me when I interviewed her for my Next Avenue column.

Molina Niño’s company invests in start-ups and supports businesses, she says, that can prove “they are creating a measurable economic benefit that puts more money in the wallets of women. If the business world actually made decisions based on what is statistically likely to yield on investment, we would only be investing in women over the age of 50.”

I regularly receive emails and calls from women interested in starting businesses and looking for guidance. Generally, they’re over 50. The number of businesses owned by women in the U.S. has increased 31 times between 1972 and 2018. Four out of every 10 businesses in the United States are now women owned, employing more than 9 million and generating more than $1.8 trillion in revenue, according to American Express’s 2018 State of Women-Owned Businesses report.

Interestingly, SCORE’s latest infographic on women in business, collecting data from 20,000 U.S. small-business owners, reveals that women 65+ are the largest group among all women 18 and over (28%) to start businesses out of necessity.

This does not surprise me given the ageism in the workplace. By contrast, ...