Never too late to go it alone

The Life: Entrepreneurs who start after 40 years old say age is no barrier, but support from family and experience gives them confidence.

Nicolai Tillisch is the founder of the Dubai consultancy Dual Impact and the author of Effective Business in the Gulf. Antonie Robertson / The National

For the last decade of his employment, Nicolai Tillisch had been toying with the idea of opening his own company.

Working as a consultant with McKinsey and Company, he often observed that so many clients failed to implement strategies and struggled to execute them.

That sowed the seeds of an idea for his own consultancy, which would give advice and help implement strategies on growth and change.

Mr Tillisch, who left his job as the global head of consulting at Nokia Siemens Networks, founded Dual Impact in 2011.

By then he was 40 years old with a family which has moved around with him from Copenhagen to Stockholm and London.

In the start-up world of the UAE, where more and more younger people in their 20s and early 30s open up companies, for a growing number of start-up owners, like Mr Tillisch, age is no bar to starting anew. Careful planning and a supportive family are what is needed for the big jump.

"I was very close to resigning three years before I did," he says.

He finally did so in October 2011, when his first child was four years old and the second two years old. His wife Ida also held on to her full-time job.

"So, there was stability at home," he says.

To increase visibility of his company in a crowded but fragmented consultancy market in Dubai, he has written a book, Effective Business in the Gulf, and speaks at a couple of events every few months.

"Some partners think I am not aggressive enough but this is important, too," Mr Tillisch says.

And he would not have the management expertise if he started his own company a decade ago, he says.

There are conflicting claims about links between an entrepreneur's age and the success of a company. Moreover, young and old is a matter of perception: at what age can an entrepreneur be called old?

The US think tank the Kauffman Foundation announced in 2010 that high-growth companies come from people with an average age of 40, and that 55 to 64-year-olds are increasingly starting their own companies.

Marco Faassen had worked 16 years as a paid employee, the latest at Cisco in Dubai.

Three years ago, Mr Faassen, 42, started the Dubai office of Amsterdam-based VisionsConnected to sell Cisco systems that enable video conferencing.

"When I was young I used shoot from the hip," the Dutch entrepreneur says. Now, he says, his initial aim is to focus on capturing only 20 per cent of the market.

Also, his age gives him the ability to take calculated risks. The official age of retirement in the Netherlands is 65, or 2036 for him if he stayed in a job.

"One of the reasons to start the business was to see how this pension date of July 1, 2036, could be reduced," he says. "But very shortly after starting the business it was clear to me that the ultimate dream goal of 'quitting' at 45 was not an option." Things didn't go skyrocketing, "not in the same tempo as in 2008", Mr Faassen says, referring to the economic downturn.

But instead of panicking, he revised the exit age: it is now 50. After that, he has eyes on the Far Eastern market in the technology and communications arena. "The energy you get drives you to the next level," he says.

Investors, too, see age as an advantage, if anything.

Experience, having managed people, and working through complex problems and in relevant roles are important criteria for funding for Beco Capital's Dany Farha.

"We have a portfolio company where the founding team members are in their late 30s and early 40s and it is refreshing to have this experience on the bench," says Mr Farha, the chief executive of Beco, a Dubai venture capital investment company.

But a disadvantage for the entrepreneur is that they have much more to sacrifice later on in life than earlier on. "Personal circumstances with families and dependents become more of a consideration with age," he says.

The biggest challenge for Mr Tillisch was giving up the pay cheque.

"It's such a good feeling," he says. "Now, whether I spend for family or business, Dh1 is Dh1."

And when one starts from scratch, there is no hiding place.

"But that motivates me," he says. "And the freedom."