Senior Entrepreneurs New Zealand founder Geoff Pearman lead an engaged audience in a discussion about starting a business later in life, on Thursday night (October 19) at the Ōamaru Opera House Inbox theatre. (4 minute read)

Waitaki District Council business and enterprise growth lead Rebecca Finlay introduced the event as part of an Inspire Waitaki initiative - a local collaboration of business organisations aiming to develop and support a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Waitaki.

Geoff talked about senior entrepreneurship as “one of the fastest growing areas of entrepreneurship and also one of the most hidden areas of entrepreneurship".

Having started his own consulting business, “in the area of age and work” at the age of 59, in New Zealand, Australia and internationally, Geoff also began Senior Entrepreneurs NZ nine years ago “as a way of simply bringing together and networking people who start businesses for the first time over the age of 50”.

On the invitation of Massey University, he “lead a five-year research programme investigating senior entrepreneurship in Aotearoa New Zealand”.

“Thirty-four percent of the workforce is now over the age of 50,” he said.

“What’s happened over the last 100 years, our life expectancy has increased by about 25 years.”

“I often talk about 50, and when you get into your fifties, one of the realisations is that in actual fact, you’re only two thirds of the way through [life]”.

“So, longevity is not more older people being older longer. Longevity is the opportunity to do life quite differently.”

Geoff debunked some widely held misconceptions about older workers. 

“OECD research says that if you’ve got a higher participation rate of older workers, you’ll have a higher participation rate of younger workers. 

“So it’s really important to challenge this view that older workers are keeping younger workers out of work. In actual fact, they create work.”

As for the belief that life is a slow grind downhill after 65, he noted New Zealand doesn’t have a retirement age.

"What we have is an age of entitlement to an aged pension.”

Geoff identified a range of later-in-life, technology-based businesses in the research.

"This belief that people who are not digital natives have no use of [technology] or don’t like it, is not in fact true. You learn what you need to learn and you go for it, because there’s a purpose."

The data defies the myths, older people are starting businesses despite preconceptions are that start-ups are just for the young.

“In the research, most people starting businesses later in life, cobbled it together.

“There is support out there and there are services available. The only issue is they often don’t look like us [older people],” he said.

Geoff invited local business owners Amber and Patrick Tyrell of Valley Views Glamping (current finalists in the Business South Business Awards) and Martin Horspool of Buggy Robot to join him in a panel discussion about starting their businesses later in life.

Mirroring the research, both businesses were started through circumstantial necessity and the recognition of an opportunity. 

For Martin, it was the opportunity to turn his side-hustle, “creative work as an artist for 17 years”, into a business when his partner was made redundant.

“If she hadn’t been made redundant, we’d still be carrying on doing the same humdrums.”

Patrick spoke of being made redundant from his job as a civil engineer.

“it was the greatest thing that ever happened. I say that now.”

Amber added the Alps to Ocean Cycle Trail had just started and they were looking for more accommodation along the route.

There was general agreement that for each of the owners, their success came through figuring things out. 

Geoff spoke of his first workshop where the business community, people in that community working in business, and government agencies were brought together.

“We set an exercise and we said to the people who were starting a business, 'what we want you to do is just to write down on Post-it labels, those things you wish you could have access to, to help you get your business going'.

Then they got the others to write down all the services available in that community.

“You would have thought they lived in totally different communities," he said.

As the first group spoke about the needs they had identified, the various agencies said those were things they already did.

That’s the disconnect that Inspire Waitaki wants to see change in our community, Rebecca said. 

The panellists shared their stories of starting a business, including the hard work. They admitted there were hard times, and resilience was required.

“It doesn’t matter what the problem is, there’s always an answer to it and you don’t know it yet,” Amber said.

“We’ve got four young adult children and one of the things that we didn't think of in the beginning, but we realise now, is that we've set a really good example to them, and that they've seen us go through this. So, it's given them a lot of confidence about whatever they want to do in life.”

When asked if any of the panel had accessed support services in starting their businesses, the answer was no, they didn’t know where to find that or they just assumed it would cost a lot of money. 

A perfect segue, as Rebecca put it, to announcing that Inspire Waitaki has invited Geoff to run a follow-up workshop for those wanting to explore how to start a business in more detail. 

Those who attended are asked to complete a follow-up survey to enable the workshop details to be finalised.

For those who missed the event but are interested in knowing more, she asked they make contact, because "we are here to help". Email [email protected] or connect with Inspire Waitaki via the LinkedIn or Instagram pages.  

Geoff donated a copy of his book Doing it Differently along with a report and summary document of the research conducted at Massey University which the Waitaki District Council has made available to borrow from The Business Hive.

You can also see helpful resources at Senior Entrepreneurs New Zealand online.

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For those interested in young enterprise, join the Inspire Waitaki community discussion on the young enterprise scheme hosted by The Business Hive, next Thursday (October 26) at 5.15pm.