Two weeks before the first COVID lockdown of 2020, I was made redundant, I was 47. I’d been ‘let go’ once before, back in my twenties, but this was nothing like that. This time I was VP of Marketing for a global brand, with a senior salary, grown up responsibilities and a family to support. Even though I was scared, I felt flat and uninspired as the job offers trickled in, which made me ask myself the question so many people arrive at in midlife - ‘if not this, then what do I really want now?’

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was about to join this whole other world of entrepreneurship. One in four female business owners in the UK is over 50, according to Prowess’s analysis of ONS data, and self-employment among women over 50 is growing faster than almost any other group. Even as overall self-employment fell after 2020, the number of over-50s running their own businesses rose by 89,000, according to the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed. Every week on my podcast, The Midlife Entrepreneur, I meet the women behind those numbers. So, at a time when we'd traditionally be expected to slow down, we're choosing to start something new.

You’d hardly know it though. If you look at the ‘founders to watch’ lists, women like us barely register. Part of it is a system that’s still built around youth, but part of it is a choice; we know investment could help us grow faster, but after decades of working for other people and raising families, we’d rather do things under our own steam and be the captains of our own destiny.

So why are so many of us starting something new now? In my experience, it comes down to three things. We’re pushed, we’re pulled, and we’re better prepared than we’ve ever been.

We're pushed - Research for Totaljobs found that employers in the UK see 57 as ‘too old’, so it’s no surprise that 37% of women over 50 fear age discrimination will stop them getting another job. In addition, one in ten women who worked through menopause has left a job because of their symptoms (Fawcett Society). I've also spoken to women who took time out to raise their families and now hesitate to apply for roles at all, convinced their experience is out of date, so rather than face the knock-backs, they’d sooner do their own thing.

Amanda Hall spent 20 years raising three children and project managing the renovation of family homes. When her 23-year marriage ended, leaving her in real financial difficulty, she was forced to look for jobs. She kept hearing the same thing though, they’d found someone with ‘more recent experience’. So, as a last resort, she looked to entrepreneurialism instead, turning those two decades into Beck & Hall, a luxury relocation business that has since featured in Vogue and House & Garden.

But mostly, we’re pulled - Many of us looked at what’s on offer and, like me, weren’t tempted to even try. After decades of pressure and stress building someone else’s vision and working at someone else’s pace (often for little thanks), we wanted control of our time in a job that means something to us, surrounded by people we choose to do it with.

I’d spent 25 wonderful years in the fashion industry working for some of the most powerful and glamorous brands in the world, and I’d loved every minute, but by 47 my values had changed; I wanted more purpose, flexibility, variety, and most importantly, autonomy. I didn’t set out to become an entrepreneur. I just started with a mission, to help women achieve more than they ever thought possible and worked backwards from there. That led me to coaching.

I hear versions of this every week on the show, like Abigail Wilmore who held Chief People Officer roles at Tom Ford, Stella McCartney and Dr Barbara Sturm. Burnt out after the pandemic, she started asking herself, ‘what’s this next decade of my life going to look like?’ The answer was People Flow, her community for HR professionals, which she went into full time as she turned 50. Or Maxine Laceby, who turned 50 as her children began to leave home and went on to co-found Absolute Collagen with her daughter, Darcy.

We’re prepared – A major US study, published in American Economic Review: Insights, found that a 50-year-old founder is 1.8 times more likely than a 30-year-old to build one of the fastest growing businesses. I can see why, by midlife we have something you can’t fast track, decades of experience, expertise, contacts, and hard-earned confidence all compounding together. We’ve led teams, survived restructures, and recovered from numerous setbacks both at work and in life.

Many of us also have a financial cushion that younger founders don't. My redundancy package and some savings bought me two years without an income. That gave me time to retrain, build up my coaching hours and eventually found my company, The Ascent Associates. Two years later came The Midlife Entrepreneur podcast, which started as a passion project but now acts as a lead magnet for my work and has given me a voice in the entrepreneurial world I never expected.

It wasn’t easy though. I’ll never forget my first paying clients. After years of introducing myself as something else, I was now presenting myself as a coach, and it felt deeply uncomfortable. Looking back, the coaching I offered was nowhere near as intuitive and natural as it is now, more than 1000 hours later, but what did I expect? When you start anything new, you have to be willing to be a beginner again, and that takes courage. Most of the women I meet build the same way I did, steadily and at their own pace. It works, but it doesn’t look like the founder stories we’re used to seeing.

So, are we overlooked, or are we simply not willing to put up with what younger founders do to get funded: the endless pitching, the investor deadlines, giving away a slice of the business? Funding and business support certainly still favours the young. If you've ever been to an incubator, you'll know what I mean: rooms full of energetic twenty and thirty somethings confidently pitching their ideas. The data backs it up, the average high-growth UK founder starts their business at 36 (Beauhurst, 2021). Meanwhile, a survey by HSBC UK and NOON found that 69% of midlife female founders funded their businesses through personal savings or remortgaging. Only 2% received venture capital.

We’re more comfortable backing ourselves with our own money despite the risk. Freedom and autonomy are why we started, and we’ll happily work evenings and weekends, but the pressure is ours to set. Take on investors and the business becomes a very different beast, answerable to someone else's timeline and someone else's idea of success.

Marielle Wyse launched clothing brand Wyse London in 2014, after a separation at 49. Today it turns over more than £18 million across six stores, and she is still the sole shareholder. She hasn’t ruled investment out, but if it ever happens, it will be on her terms and in her own time.

Perhaps that's why we're underestimated. Maybe we're seen as unambitious. Business culture still prizes youth, speed and noise, and we're not making much noise. But we're Gen X. We were the original latchkey kids, raised not to make a fuss and to sort things out for ourselves. So that's exactly what we're doing. And anyone who grew up in the 80s will tell you - never underestimate the quiet ones.

Join Jo at Power Years Live

Jo hosts Power Years Live on Friday 6 November at Arding & Hobbs, Clapham Junction. If her founders have you thinking about your own next move, spend the day with women who are building and reinventing at every stage. Just a few tickets left.

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