Steve Rucinski

First off I am well over 30 but I and some older associates are cooking up new business ideas and we are drawn directly or through recommendation to consider using some of the new business incubators that exist in our home state.

However we are finding the structure of the incubators difficult to access for individuals our age with some pretty critical financial responsibilities, you know things like mortgages, car payments, health insurance, college expenses, food, heat, light, water, you get it.

While we think the incubator model is great, and the process is great, the financial funding provided by most entities while incubating does not support older entrepreneurs who have these types of financial responsibilities. It might be enough to support some core living expenses and work progress on your idea but the lack of enough funding to care for familial responsibilities serves as a barrier to older entrepreneurs.

Here are a couple of the descriptive lines of one of our states, taxpayer supported incubator entities:

“Accelerating Young Entrepreneur Start-Ups” or 

“10 Young Entrepreneurial teams will be selected from within”

That begs the question what does ‘Young’ mean? Maybe we should just start an incubator labeled, “Accelerating Mature, Seasoned Entrepreneurial Start-ups.” Not all great business ideas come from the young but it seems we think innovation can only happen at a certain age.I think innovation can happen at any age. Of course maybe I am a bit biased…