The industry has changed. In 2005 the hot growth industry was the web, particular the social and sharing economy parts of it. These favor changes in consumer behavior, which young 20-somethings are particularly tapped into because their peers are often the ones driving the change. You could found a $100B company as a pair of early 20-somethings learning brand new tech and riding the beginning of some social wave.
Now - outside of crypto - most of the exciting untapped markets in tech are in:
a.) hardware, where you have bill-of-materials and contract manufacturing cost and everything takes longer to get off the ground
b.) hard sciences like fusion or satellites or aerospace, where you need a Ph.D and often some research experience to make progress (plus you have super high manufacturing costs)
c.) SaaS, where it helps to have deep knowledge of an industry so you've got those connections, understand all the internal processes of your customers, and can penetrate those sales processes.
All of these select for older founders and more capital requirements. I think the spray-and-pray approach for funding low-capital web startups isn't really viable in 2022, because consumers aren't just visiting any website or downloading any app that becomes hot.
Now - outside of crypto - most of the exciting untapped markets in tech are in:
a.) hardware, where you have bill-of-materials and contract manufacturing cost and everything takes longer to get off the ground
b.) hard sciences like fusion or satellites or aerospace, where you need a Ph.D and often some research experience to make progress (plus you have super high manufacturing costs)
c.) SaaS, where it helps to have deep knowledge of an industry so you've got those connections, understand all the internal processes of your customers, and can penetrate those sales processes.
All of these select for older founders and more capital requirements. I think the spray-and-pray approach for funding low-capital web startups isn't really viable in 2022, because consumers aren't just visiting any website or downloading any app that becomes hot.