It’s never too late to start your own business, and help is at hand for those who have it on their radar.

Dunedin-based founder of Senior Entrepreneurs New Zealand, Geoff Pearman, is speaking at an Inspire Waitaki event on Thursday (October 19), at the Ōamaru Opera House Ink Box, along with two Waitaki entrepreneurs - Amber Tyrell from Valley Views Glamping, and Buggy Robot Man Martin Horspool.

Waitaki District Council Business and Enterprise Growth lead, and Business South Waitaki navigator Rebecca Finlay said Geoff’s work is especially important in Waitaki.

“We have a disproportionately older population and a large number of people on supported living benefits after years of sometimes physical labour.

“We want to support our communities to find their passion and stay active in the economy,” she said. 

“We feel very lucky that Geoff Pearman is joining us to present on how starting a business later in life can be so rewarding.”

Geoff will speak of his own experience, having lost two jobs in his fifties, which led to him starting his own consulting business as he turned 60 - 12 years ago.

“I'm 72 now and I established that in New Zealand and Australia and worked internationally, and my area of consulting expertise was ageing workforces.

“So I worked with companies to help them adapt to the ageing of their workforce, to maximise the value of older workers.”

From that, Geoff developed a particular interest in senior entrepreneurship, and nine years ago, when he moved back to Dunedin, he started Senior Entrepreneurs New Zealand, a support network for people starting businesses later in life.

For the past five years he also led a research project for Massey University, looking at senior entrepreneurship in Aotearoa New Zealand.

“We launched that research 12 months ago, and we've developed a whole lot of tools and resources and videos people can use, and now I'm supporting the Office for Seniors in a national rollout of a pilot program and doing the evaluation for that.”

The reasons people choose to start a business later in life are diverse - but it is either through choice or necessity, he said.

“Choice, because ‘I've got something I want to do’. They want to make a difference for people. They've got a dream they've always wanted to pursue . . . and the necessity is, they need to continue to have an income stream.”

With people living a lot longer, the old model of life, which was “go to school, get your education, have a family, work hard and then the golden dream”, is no longer realistic, Geoff said.

“More and more people are thinking differently about the latter part of life, say, 50 onwards, because effectively ... you know, you could be having quite a number of years in there, and remaining healthy and active longer.”

New Zealanders need to get away from the fixation of the retirement age being 65, as that is less often the case. However, receiving the pension at 65 provides another income stream, and can open up more options, he said.

There are major positives for starting a business later in life - international research is "very clear" business survival rates are much higher for people over the age of about 45. 

Life experience is a huge contributing factor, and older founders are more likely to make it work, because they have a shorter “time horizon” to start over.

“The runway is a bit shorter and you haven't got the time to retrieve a loss.”

While government help and services are available irrespective of age and life stage, there is a perception that government, community, and business support agencies don't see the 50+ population, although this is not necessarily true.

“We found in the research, which surprised a lot of agencies . . . we had some agencies and we had some people who are starting businesses, and we asked the people starting businesses, ‘what do you need?’, and they gave us a whole long list. The agencies sat there and said, ‘we do that’, and the older people said, ‘we don't know, it doesn't look like us’.”

The stereotypical entrepreneur is someone “young, hip, wanting to get into something that's really exciting and wanting to build a business that's going to make a million dollars and be saleable within three, five years”, Geoff said. 

“Generally, if you walk down the main street of Ōamaru and say ‘what sort of people become entrepreneurs?’, you'll get that answer.”

He is enthusiastic about working with groups such as Business South, to get the message out that there is help available.

“So, I guess it's, there's a mismatch going on there and this is what excites me . . . getting out there and saying, ‘hey, it's possible’.

“You could start a business in your fifties, sixties or seventies and we've got a guy on one of the courses who's over 75, who's got a business idea and wants to give it a whirl. 

“What's needed is really good support and helping people to evaluate their ideas, get their business started. Because you know, at this stage in life you haven't got that.”

For those wanting to know where to start, Geoff encourages them to register online for the free Inspire Waitaki evening this Thursday. 

Those who can’t make it, could start by visiting the Better Work in Later Life website.

“And find someone else who's in the same situation as you, or they've started a business later in life. Go and have a coffee with them and talk about it, and then go wander down the road and have a talk to Business South and Rebecca and get some advice.”

It's Never Too Late is at the Ōamaru Opera House, Thursday October 19, 5.15pm to 7pm, in the Ink Box. Admission is free