Can You Start a Business After 50? Ande Lyons Has Done It—More Than Once Titelbild

Can You Start a Business After 50? Ande Lyons Has Done It—More Than Once

Can You Start a Business After 50? Ande Lyons Has Done It—More Than Once

Jetzt kostenlos hören, ohne Abo

Details anzeigen
Episode SummaryThis episode answers a question millions of women in midlife are quietly asking: is it too late to start something new? The short answer, backed by decades of lived experience, is no—and Ande Lyons is the proof.Ande Lyons, 69, is a serial entrepreneur who has launched and closed multiple businesses across completely different industries—from dot-com venture capital and a nationally distributed food brand to a desire-and-intimacy platform, a startup mentoring practice, and now a pro-aging podcast and thriving podcaster community. She has raised angel funding, survived a lightning strike that burned her manufacturing facility to the ground, been "shamed out" of a business by her peers, and come back every single time.In this conversation, Ande and host Janine Vanderburg unpack the real story behind building a business at any age—the failures no one posts about, the internalized ageism that sneaks in around age 50, and the practical, MBA-tested framework Ande uses to test ideas before betting everything on them. If you have ever talked yourself out of starting something because you thought you were too old, this episode is your reframe.Key TakeawaysFailure is part of the business-building curriculum. Ande's position is that you always win when you launch a business, even when it closes—because the skills, self-knowledge, and market insight you gain directly fund your next venture. Most successful businesses are not the founder's first.Ageism in entrepreneurship is learned, not innate. The belief that entrepreneurship belongs to the young is absorbed slowly over decades through media, pop culture, and even well-meaning people who stop asking "what do you want?" and start asking "when are you retiring?" Recognizing it as indoctrination is the first step to dismantling it.Launching a podcast is one of the fastest ways to become an expert in a new industry. Ande has used this strategy repeatedly: enter a new space, interview the established experts, ask every question you have, and let the content build your credibility while you learn.Build in public before you build in full. Ande's New England Podcasters Group started as a single monthly in-person event to test whether people would show up. Only after proving consistent attendance did she introduce a paid membership—and the founding member price of $100/year for life made it an easy yes.Midlife is not the end of ambition; it is the beginning of clarity. At 50+, you finally know who you are, what you will and will not tolerate, and what genuinely lights you up. That self-knowledge is a competitive advantage that no 28-year-old founder can buy.Frequently Asked QuestionsIs it too late to start a business after 50?No. Ande Lyons has launched businesses in her 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s—and she argues that midlife may actually be the best time to start. By 50, most women have decades of domain expertise, a strong professional network, clearer personal values, and a much sharper sense of what problem they actually want to solve. The belief that entrepreneurship belongs to young people is a culturally absorbed assumption, not a fact.What is the biggest mistake new entrepreneurs make with marketing?According to Ande, the most common and costly mistake is treating marketing as a creative exercise—clever copy, eye-catching graphics, and social media posts—rather than a data discipline. Marketing is fundamentally a numbers game. Understanding your target market, your customer acquisition cost (CAC), your lifetime customer value (LTV), and your break-even point matters far more than any single viral post.How do you test a business idea before going all in?Ande's method is to start small and build in public. For her New England Podcasters Group, she ran a free monthly in-person event for nearly a year before introducing any paid tier. When she saw consistent attendance and growing demand, she introduced a founding membership at a price that made the decision easy. Proof of concept before capital commitment is the through line across all of her ventures.How do you transition from one professional identity to a new one?Deliberately, and with a bridge. When Ande moved from startup mentor to pro-aging advocate, she did not just rebrand overnight. She ran a 30-episode podcast season called Your Ink Story—interviews about people's tattoos—as a "palate cleanser" that kept her publishing, kept her audience engaged, and gave her time to develop the new platform without a jarring public pivot.What should women in midlife do first if they want to start a business?Ande recommends starting with deep self-inquiry before strategy. Her go-to resource is Don't Retire, Rewire by Jerry Sedler, which offers structured questions to help you identify what genuinely lights you up. From there, the practical steps follow: identify the problem you want to solve, confirm that people will pay for the solution, and launch before you feel ready—because the real ...
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
Noch keine Rezensionen vorhanden