Take your time and find at least one partner. If you don't know them well do some smaller projects together first.

Older entrepreneurs bring social capital, commitment, and an ability to focus and persist (See http://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2009/10/02/three-advantages-of-... )

There's lots of examples out there: Jay Adelson founded Digg at 34 and Revision3 at 35. William Hanna and Joe Barbera founded Hanna-Barbera Productions when they were both pushing fifty. You're never too old to get going.

I deeply believe this, because I'm in a similar boat (early thirties and married). Speaking from personal experience, your age will be an advantage more than an impediment. Age gives you experience, and hopefully some maturity and perspective as well. Those will serve you well in a new business venture.

Only one caveat - Make sure that your family is supportive. Starting a new business is a roller coaster, and it helps immeasurably to have the emotional backup. If your wife isn't on board with the idea, then take time to win her over before you take the plunge.

Now, go out there and do it! The only thing holding you back at this point is you.

E.g., John Warnock and Charles Geschke founded Adobe when they were 41 and 42, respectively.

Ignore the media fawning of young founders; it's only so much noise, and means nothing in the end.

I have talked long and hard with my wife about this, and I have total buy in from her. That's huge. I wouldn't be able to do this if she wasn't on board.

My advice: get in a startup as early as you can afford to. If that means being employee 10, so be it. You'll still have a good time. If you can afford to be a founder, do it. But with a wife and kids, joining a funded entity is probably more palatable.

As a more mature adult... you're actually really valuable to a startup: you bring wisdom and perspective. And you're still willing, you haven't 'grown out of it.' Use this to your advantage.

I'd suggest this talk from Damien Katz of CouchDB, about taking the leap to work on a project full time, with a wife and kids - http://www.infoq.com/presentations/katz-couchdb-and-me

Advice addendum: Be patient. There aren't many organizations that will work well for what you need, small and fresh enough to remain interesting yet stable enough to support a real family. The good news is that you only need one.

That stops being true when you stop thinking it.

I dunno, a site to create bucket lists with reminders emailed every 24 hours, something like that

That being said, I don't think it's ever too late.

But being married with kids makes the decision a little harder. Doing a startup on the side (i.e. keeping your job for now) means you sacrifice time with your family. Taking the leap and quitting your job (at some point) may mean a lifestyle change for everyone if you're only ramen profitable or living off savings. Those are decisions you need to make with your spouse. There were some months early on I really put some stress on my wife (financially) ... that's not a discussion where you sugar-coat things or pull a "if only 1% ...".

I'm in my mid thirties, married, and have 4 kids (one is already 15!) so I occasionally feel like an "old founder" when I read about the college kids on HN or TechCrunch. But we do real well now. I think its been 8 years since I had a "real job" ... no regrets.

- Kaufmann Foundation for Entrepreneurship, http://www.kauffman.org/Details.aspx?id=1784 "New Study Challenges Popular Perception of Founder Makeup of Technology and Engineering Companies"

The idea of college being "the time" to start a startup is the fact that it's lower-risk, because you can always fall back on college. There is no reason that it is the only time to start a startup; on the contrary, any time is the right time.

I know many an entrepreneur who have started businesses who are well into their 40s and married with children. Your experience is valuable; use it!

I don't see a passion for any particular project or idea in your question. I would expect that someone that really wanted to be an entrepreneur, right from their college days, would have moved in that direction somehow -- either by saving funds away so they could do it without disrupting their family, or by working on something on the side in their spare time.

Your question sounds more like it's coming from someone that likes the idea of being an entrepreneur, the 1990's version of, "I want to be an inventor too!" Being an entrepreneur means lots of long days; late or sleepless nights; lots of risk as you bank your welfare, and your family's, on the success of your new business. You don't have marketing or management experience, and those are helpful skills for someone trying to start a new small business.

The majority of startups fail, whether they're a local brick-and-mortar store or a webware-2.0 shindig. The odds are stacked against you. So, what will you do if it doesn't work out? What would you do differently to ensure that your outcome is more successful?

What do you dislike about what you're doing now? Is it just not "sexy" enough? Are you bored, or unchallenged? A side project, or a new job in your career, or even working for an established startup, would all be more logical choices than launching your own business.

So instead of wanting to be an entrepreneur, starting being more aware, find a problem that really get's you going, solve it, tell the world about it and charge them when they turn up. Being passionate and making a difference is what's really important, not some label that you stick on yourself to impress people at cocktail parties.

If I could be content with a safe, regular job at a large company, I would do that instead without a moment's hesitation.

Unfortunately, I seem to suffer from some kind of mental illness which makes me cranky anytime I can blame anyone but myself for whatever mess I find myself in.

If I've got something like that to focus on, then I'm less likely to lose interest halfway into it.

Being an entrepreneur is about being so passionate about a product or service that you, and only you, can produce that you're willing to move heaven and earth to get it out there. Working for yourself means freeing yourself from the shackles of pointy haired bosses and stupid corporate policies.

Being an entrepreneur means going for the startup (or opening that bakery or what-have-you); working for yourself means setting out a shingle and starting a consulting practice.

If it's a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B, do the consulting practice for a year, then start your product on the side after you've built up a base of clients to support yourself.

With that said good luck on your journey!

In any case, as far as getting into "startup mode" it might help if you had an offering that you really believed in. Something to wow the world with. An idea for a product or service that is compelling to you and to others (a lot of others). Something your wife would believe in too.

My harder problem is finding out what your direction is. You obviously have a rich experience so far, what is that interests you? And like Hugh Macleod says, don't ditch the day job, start something on the side see how it rolls and then decide what you want to do with it.

The worst thing you can do is become an entrepreneur because everyone around you is becoming one or because you think that's a way to a quick buck.

Look at your commitments towards you employer, formal and informal ones. If your commitments permit: start on side something noncompeting with your employer. If it works, then its the Decision time.

Do not burn bridges.

To gain some marketing experience, I've started side project which consists of almost no coding and all marketing in very competitive niche. I'm learning every day and, as bonus, have possibility that project will work.

Companies often give out the co-founder title to early employees, but that's not what we think of when we read that 'most founders are 40' here at HN.

http://www.kauffman.org/uploadedFiles/ResearchAndPolicy/TheS...

And Google cache HTML:

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:FKhjp-qc6sIJ:www.kauffm...

I never thought I'd find myself suggesting a PDF version, but I really do hate iPaper that much. If only Scribd had put all that effort into doing a PDF to HTML converter that doesn't suck...

can you do it on the side of your day job ? can you financially afford not to have a day job ?

About the age thing, a fun way to considere it is not "they are young and im old", but more "they are inexperienced and i am experienced" :)

and another thing, find at least one partner who is business savy. This is a requirement

The general overview of what he says: it's never too late, you don't have to jump neck deep into it at first (i.e.: quit a job and take funding), you need more passion than Gandhi, and just fucking do it.

Just assume things fail and go against you will give you a good bottom line perspective. At least you have enough buffer to expected failures.

All the best to you. Cheers.

You're also more likely to have a better partnership with someone young. My partner in my current startup is 55, and I'm 19. We get along great.

I'm looking to start a new project. =]

If the answer is yes, read on. Be sure about it or you will regret this.

I think a good idea will be to take it slow. A phased migration over a time period of year+.

phase1: For a few months at the start, maintain a status quo at current job just keep working right, but change your spending, living and saving habits. Meanwhile prepare your family for the change, slowly. You have lived too long under the cozy umbrella of constant and guaranteed paycheck at the end of every month, that has to change over to a not so persistent income and amounting only to live well and keep the kids just happy. Yes, as someone pointed out, convince and take along your spouse through this transition. Encourage her to take up a job if she is not already doing so. Save money.

phase2: Save more money :-) Then move over to part time, at the same organization if they respect your work or some other organization. You can look at freelancing also, but that a different game, you will have to build that image slowly. Consider yourself lucky if you get good gigs at the start, which is not usually the case. Meanwhile, during this 2nd phase transition, start developing a small fun/serious project or for open source in your part time. As Gary[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhqZ0RU95d4] says: work 9-5, come home, spend an hour with the kids and then 7-1 is enough time to do damage. Second pointer will be start attending dev and entrepreneur unconferences[barcamp, headstart, etc], speak up, listen, you might make a few friends there who can appreciate what you know and vice versa. Do small weekend hackathons with them, to know them more. Not all weekends, some, spend the rest with the family. Hopefully one of these friends will be the one you found your first venture with. Zero on some idea that you are passionate about and a partner who shares the passion and vision. Starting out alone is not usually encouraged, but not ruled out. Start developing a proof of concept and talk to people about it and get feedback. Once you are sure that "this is it" and you have saved enough money for you and your family for 1year, or your spouse earnings will help in that.

phase3: Get in ramen mode. """Startup!!"""

Now you are on a complete uncertain rollercoaster. No turning back. Remember this is a result of the "choice" you made not something that was forced on you, so persevere and may the luck with you.

You can shuffle a few things in the phases. :-)

Hope that helps.

Location : bangalore