If you’re thinking of starting a business, there’s no reason to wait.
When Business Insider asked LinkedIn users which decade of life is the best time to start a business, the 30s came out on top. Ronnen Harary says that tracks with the average age of entrepreneurs in the US — but his advice is to start sooner.
The Canadian entrepreneur who cofounded global children’s entertainment company Spin Master recommends starting a business in your 20s, he said in a live Q&A with Business Insider’s Sarah Needleman. The company generated over $2 billion in revenue last year. It owns brands including Paw Patrol, Rubik’s Cube, and Melissa & Doug.
“I’m an advocate of starting a little bit earlier, and then letting all the energy and all the benefits of starting earlier compound,” said Harary.
In your 20s, “everybody’s rooting for you,” Harary said.
“When you’re 25, no one sees you as competition,” he said. “When you’re 35, potentially, people see you as competition.”
Harary, who recently authored “No Experience Necessary: Why Betting on Yourself in Your Twenties Is the Best Decision You’ll Ever Make,” recalled calling Alan Hassenfeld, the former CEO of Hasbro, when he was 25 and asking for advice. Hassenfeld was generous with his time and excited to have the founders enter the industry, Harary said.
“He gave us a lot of help from a business perspective,” he said.
Harary, who founded Spin Master with his business partners at 23, when he was less than a year out of college and living with his mother, said he couldn’t have started the company in his 50s. Harary dedicated a chapter in his book about how it’s easier to take chances when you know less. He said when people are in their 20s, there’s more willingness to make mistakes because there’s more time to bounce back.
“As a result of being in your 20s, you have so much energy, you have so much drive, determination, and will to get things done,” Harary said. “When you hit your middle age, it decreases.”
While starting young can be an advantage, and plenty of entrepreneurs have dropped out of college, that doesn’t mean aspiring founders should necessarily skip higher education altogether.
Harary was initially waitlisted by the University of Western Ontario, where he ultimately attended. At a young age, he was identified as having learning challenges, including dysgraphia, a learning disability that made writing by hand difficult.
However, going to college was ultimately one of the greatest things that happened to him, he said, because it allowed him to learn more and strengthen his relationship with his future business partner, Anton Rabie, whom he met at summer camp. Rabie met their third cofounder, Ben Varadi at the school as well.
“If I didn’t make it to university, the business wouldn’t have started,” Harary said.
