Jun

26

Starting A Business In Your 60s

Posted by cameron

June 26, 2007 |

This is contrarian thinking to the max but its actually one of the easiest times in your life to do it, if you keep up with technology that is. It’s relatively easy because of retirement believe it or not. There are two things that stop younger people from starting a business that can be summed up by the word “risk”. Risk to income and risk to capital. When you need your income to raise a family it is exceedingly difficult to turn a part time sideline into an income producing business without risking family. Often times the lack of capital is a big reason because all available money is budgeted to just survive and build something for the future. Giving up the day job is a non-starter for many if not most people.

All that changes when you retire. Time is no longer a problem. I know people who worry about retiring because they don’t know what to do with their time. A business does not need to produce income to survive on so that is not a problem. Depending on the business and your savings, capital may or may not be a problem. It depends how much you need. This is the only area of risk if you have the desire and are technically inclined.

There is a new trend on the Internet for people opening online stores. It is, or was, a young persons game because of the tech-savvy requirement, but if that is not a problem then there is a low risk avenue to business opportunity. Some online store providers are providing storefronts that are easy to construct. They have packages to handle payment schemes and record keeping. All you need is someone with a warehouse who needs outlets. Trust the entrepreneurial spirit of America to come up with an answer to this problem. There are now sites that specialize in presenting those warehouse folks to prospective online merchants, like me. Don’t you just love it?

So you select a product(s) to sell and choose the company(s) with that product to move, construct your online store presenting those products, accept the credit card or PayPal order and pass it to the warehouse people. They drop ship to your customer and, voila, you made a sale. You pocket the difference between what the warehouse people want and the price you get for the merchandise online. There are some “per transaction” fees to pay and obviously taxes but that is why you have margin.

To setup a company and get a vendor license costs about $150. Buying a domain name is less that $10. Site operating costs for a year are $400-$500. Marketing costs might add $200. So in today’s world you can be a storekeeper, work from home, or anywhere else with an Internet connection, and get started for around $400 with a total operating cost for a year of $400-$500. Try that on Main Street.

This is the total risk. No family risk, no real risk. Don’t you just love it? I open for business in my first store next month. I think I may be too busy to retire.


Comments

2 Comments so far

  1. wedding accessories on June 26, 2007 8:56 pm

    I’m not 60 but it seems to me that what better time to leverage years of experience on your terms.

  2. Content Quake Network Notables for June 28th : Content Quake on June 28, 2007 1:14 pm

    […] Empty Nest talks about starting a business in your 60’s […]

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