You Are Not Too Old To Start and Run Your Own Company

You Are Not Too Old To Start and Run Your Own Company 

There is this perception of people growing old and start retrogressing into the back sit so the younger ones can take  the baton and run with it. There is no problem with this line of thought if the old won't take a back sit. 


However, the problem is with retiring that often lead to the retiring of all the cumulative experiences. 

If you have been working effectively all your life, say 15 years, and you feel the shuttle to the office and back is taking a big toll on your health, and now feel like retiring because you've saved some money up whether in the bank or in stocks. Here is the take - don't retire to the village and don't retire to a rocking chair.

There are two prominent people you should know about that started their business in their considerable older years, and went on to build a business that outlast them. It beats all odds and still in existence today - a trans-generational business. 

One of the business is the Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) started by Colonel Hartland Sanders when he was 65 years that at 73 he sold KFC for $2 million ($20,460,338.98 in 2017 source). And the second is the McDonald, American hamburger and fast food chain, that took a quantum leap after Ray Kroc at the of 53 became the franchising agent and by the time he was 59 years, he purchased the company outright.

Let's start with the story of Kentucky Fried Chicken as seen on The Verge website:

"At age 5 his Father died," begins the story. "At age 16 he quit school. At age 17 he had already lost four jobs. At age 18 he got married. He joined the army and washed out there. At age 20 his wife left him and took their baby. He became a cook in a small cafe and convinced his wife to return home. At age 65 he retired. He felt like a failure & decided to commit suicide. He sat writing his will, but instead, he wrote what he would have accomplished with his life & thought about how good of a cook he was. So he borrowed $87 fried up some chicken using his recipe, went door to door to sell. At age 88 Colonel Sanders, founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) Empire was a billionaire."

And as seen on yourstory.com page with the title - The Story of Colonel Sanders, a Man who Started at 65 and Failed 1009 Times Before Succeeding;

One of the most amazing aspects of his life is the fact that when he reached the age of sixty-five, after running a restaurant for several years, Harland Sanders found himself penniless. He retired and received his first social security check which was for one hundred and five dollars. And that was just the beginning of his international fame and financial success story…

Col. Sanders was a fellow who really loved to share his fried chicken recipe. He had a lot of positive influence from those who tasted the chicken. Now, the Colonel was retired and up in age and while most people believed in the sanctimony of retirement, the Colonel opted to sell the world on his cool new chicken recipe. With little in terms of means at his disposal, Colonel Sanders traveled door to door to houses and restaurants all over his local area. He wanted to partner with someone to help promote his chicken recipe. Needless to say, he was met with little enthusiasm.

He was turned down one-thousand and nine times before his chicken was accepted once!

By 1964, Colonel Sanders had 600 franchises selling his trademark chicken. At this time, he sold his company for $2 million dollars but remained as a spokesperson. In 1976, the Colonel was ranked as the world’s second most recognizable celebrity.


And from his biography written in thebalance.com, 

His original restaurant was a kitchen table he placed in front of the service station and eventually he opened up Sander’s Café, his first restaurant, across the street from the service station. Because he felt it took too long to cook, his original restaurant did not start out serving fried chicken.That did not come until later when he developed his secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices and began to cook his chicken in a pressure cooker. I recall Dave Thomas telling me that one of the dangers of the Colonel’s cooking process was that the pressure cookers frequently exploded.

Read more of his wonderful story here to build up the inspiration and motivation never to rest until you build a business that outlast you. 

Now, let's see the Ray Kroc story of how he was able to convince the original founders of McDonalds to be the franchise agent and how he bought them over. There's also the movie to help you get a vivid picture of the whole events. 

 Born in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1902, Ray Kroc spent most of the first decades of his professional career selling paper cups and milkshake machines. After discovering a popular California restaurant owned by Dick and Mac McDonald, he went into business with the brothers and launched the McDonald's franchise in 1955. Kroc purchased the company outright in 1961, and his strict operational guidelines helped transform McDonald's into the world’s largest restaurant franchise before his death in 1984, at the age of 81. source

Looking at the biography.com website, 

In 1954, Kroc visited a restaurant owned by brothers Dick and Mac McDonald in San Bernardino, California, that reportedly had the need for several of his multimixers. He was impressed by the simple efficiency of the operation, which rapidly catered to its customers by focusing on a simple menu of burgers, french fries and shakes.

Grasping the potential for a chain of restaurants, Kroc offered to work as a franchising agent for a cut of the profits. In 1955, he founded McDonald's System, Inc. (later McDonald’s Corporation), and opened its first new restaurant in Des Plains, Illinois. 

By 1959 McDonald's had opened restaurant No. 100, but Kroc still wasn't reaping significant profits. Following the advice of Harry J. Sonneborn, who became McDonald’s Corp.'s first president, Kroc set up a system in which the company purchased and leased land to new franchises. Sonneborn also helped secure a $2.7 million loan that enabled Kroc to purchase the company outright from the McDonald brothers in 1961.

Under Kroc’s ownership, McDonald’s retained some of its original character while incorporating new elements. Kroc kept the assembly line approach to hamburger preparation that the McDonald brothers pioneered in the 1940s, while taking care to streamline operations across every restaurant. Franchise owners, chosen for their ambition and drive, went through a training course at “Hamburger University” in Elk Grove, Illinois. There, they earned certificates in “hamburgerology with a minor in french fries.” Kroc focused his efforts on growing suburban areas, capturing new markets with familiar food and low prices.

You can follow more of the McDonalds story here and here.

Are you thinking of retiring or you are still young but chosen a date to retire. Don't do it! 

There are some traits that help Ray Kroc and Colonel Sanders to succeed. 

For Ray Kroc: 

Because of his restaurant and sales experience, Kroc saw the brilliance and potential in the fast food restaurant concept the McDonald’s brothers had created.  He first thought about capitalizing on the McDonald’s brothers successful restaurant chain concept from the perspective of milk shake machine sales.  Instead, though, Kroc ended up being a national franchise agent for the McDonald’s brothers instead.    

And for Colonel Sanders:

Sanders was an aggressive marketer of his restaurant and service station, and his talent and temper landed him in a bit of trouble with one of his local competitors. Sanders began to paint advertising for his service station and restaurant on barns for miles around his location. One of his competitors, Matt Stewart, who operated a nearby Standard Oil station, took exception to the Colonel’s advertising and began to paint over his signs. 

So, there you have it. 

It came to me that the one thing I could do was cook. And I figured I couldn't do any worse than the people running these places around town - Colonel Sanders