Are you a Queenager Entrepreneur? Would you like to be?

What are the opportunities and barriers to become a Founder at 50plus? Please take our survey to find out

Eleanor swimming in the Dart at Dartington Hall. Devon

Hope your freezing February Monday isn’t too grim! I just got back to grey London from sunny Devon, hard to believe that only 24 hours I was swimming in the River Dart in the sunshine (yes here is the proof!).

I’m writing you a little extra newsletter because I would really like your help… it is over three years since I set up NOON and became an entrepreneur at 50. It’s been quite the ride – I’d never run a business before and it took a while to get to grips with Stripe and Streamyard, Xero etc and to try and work out what I was doing. BUT it has also been probably the BEST thing I have ever done; I love the autonomy, the community we are co-creating together and the amazing sense that every thing is possible. Having worked for one of the biggest companies in the world for nearly a quarter of a century, I also love the liberation of being able to make decisions without running them past loads of sub-committees. And of course I love my wonderful NOON team. New research from the US shows that older entrepreneurs are twice as successful as younger ones (our grey hair is good for something) and UK research shows that women entrepreneurs are a better bet in terms of hitting their targets, being realistic about growth etc.. in fact in 2023 women aged 45 to 60 made up 69% of all business owners. I’m not surprised, being your own boss brings flexibility (16 times more important to Queenagers than status according to our research) Purpose (crucial, we want to make the time we’ve got left count) and autonomy (v important to Queenagers in our NOON research). So I want to encourage MORE women to take the plunge and start their own businesses, not least because us Queenagers are behind over 90 per cent of all household spending decisions yet appear in less than 10 per cent of adverts… our research shows that midlife women would be 68% MORE likely to buy from a brand that represents them authentically, which a Queenager Founder is much more likely to do. There is huge potential here because the mainstream generally ignore us. So that is why I am sending around a NOON survey, all about becoming a midlife entrepreneur. It’s not just for women who are doing it, but for those who are thinking about it too… if that’s you, please fill it in. And if that’s not you, maybe you know a woman who it would apply to. This is all about supporting each other; we’re trying to work out the barriers to entrepreneurship and the opportunities so we can get more money invested in midlife women (only 2% of Venture Capital goes to women… yes you read that right, not 2% goes to older women, but 2% globally goes to ALL women). This has to change.. this survey will be used to lobby to make the case. Our current government is desperate for growth and if women started and scaled businesses in the UK at the same rate as men we’d boost the economy by a huge £250 billion according to the Rose Review. So let’s help Queenagers help themselves – please fill in our survey!