Retire? No way! The rise of the Granpreneurs
It’s never too late to launch your own business as these inspiring grandmothers prove...
AS SHE stood before her audience in a tailored designer jacket and crisp black trousers, Tricia Cusden fought back a wry smile.
Though she was as smartly dressed as the other business delegates at the social media conference, she couldn’t help noticing a disbelieving look on some faces.
‘I knew they were thinking, “She shouldn’t be in business” or “a digital company is beyond her capacity”.’
At 67, she might be a grandmother of four, but Tricia is also the founder and chief executive of the booming global cosmetics empire, Look Fabulous Forever, aimed specifically at women over 50.
She launched the business in 2013 using ‘a good chunk of her savings’. Two years on, she is turning over more than four times what she invested and is deluged with makeup orders from all over the world.
‘I couldn’t have done this when I was younger,’ says Tricia, from London. ‘I was too busy raising my children, plus my business idea came as a result of getting older. Now I’m in my 60s, I have the financial and personal freedom to be an entrepreneur.
‘As a generation, we’re starting to make society realise we’re not all old grannies with rugs around our knees.’
Not your average businesswoman, you may think — but you’d be wrong.
First we had mumpreneurs — the women raising children while also setting up thriving businesses from their kitchen tables, celebrated recently with our Mumpreneur of the Year awards in the Daily Mail.
And now we have so-called ‘granpreneurs’ who are breaking the ‘silver ceiling’ and taking the business world by storm. They are a generation of spirited, vivacious and entrepreneurial grannies, ripping up the rule book and eschewing steady retirement in order to launch successful businesses.
‘I relish those looks of disbelief when I walk into a boardroom,’ says Tricia, who has been divorced for 25 years. ‘I always begin by saying: “I want to completely change your perception of what 67-year-old grandmothers should be up to.”’
And she is far from alone. According to the Department for Work and Pensions, a record 64.2 per cent of women over 50 are working, some out of necessity because of the pension age rising. But many, like Tricia, simply have a burning desire to launch businesses they would never have had the opportunity to when they were younger.
Historically, the over-50s have had fewer entrepreneurs. But according to the UK Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report published by Aston university Business School in July 2014, 6.5 per cent of over-50s are starting businesses — the same percentage as 18 to 49-year-olds — for the first time.
FIGURES out this month from Age UK reveal there are more than 23.2 million people aged 50 and over in the UK, accounting for more than a third of the total population — which means 1.5 million of those have launched their own business.
Former City headhunter Ceri Wheeldon, 56, is founder of careers and lifestyle website
fabafterfifty.co.uk and says her own generation of fifty and sixtysomethings are more go-getting than any previous generation.
‘They may have had a long career in employment, but when retirement looms they think: “Hang on, I want to do something I’m passionate about now,” and many devise business plans to become their own boss,’ she explains
‘There are opportunities at this age that didn’t exist when we were younger. Plus, it’s so much easier and cheaper to set up a company thanks to the affordability and accessibility of technology.’
Tricia Cusden spent her previous working life as a management training consultant. After winding down that career as she approached 60, she then spent 15 ‘precious’ months as a ‘full-time’ grandmother when one of her grandchildren was hospitalised.
‘After the initial relief when my granddaughter recovered and my daughter was able to return to work, I found myself thinking, “what next?”,’ says Tricia. She has two daughters Anna, 41, and Suzy, 37, and four
grandchildren, Patrick seven, Rory, five, Freya, six and India, four, and says: ‘Financially I was comfort-able, but I was quite bored. I had so much energy as well as two bees in my bonnet about the beauty industry.
‘It bothered me that, as an older woman, it was increasingly difficult to find make-up that suited all the changes that happen to your skin as you age. I was fed up of buying foundation that disappeared into my dry skin, lip and eyeliners which feathered and bled, and shiny eyeshadows that aged my crepey lids.
‘It also frustrated me that the beauty industry ignores older women. I thought how fantastic it would be to have a company that was loud and proud about offering products that work well on older eyes, faces and lips. I backed a hunch that lots of older women would agree with me.’
In 2013, aged 65, Tricia set up her cosmetics company and qualified as a make-up artist. With a British cosmetics manufacturer, she developed a range of products for older women and posted two videos on youTube.
Initially they attracted a handful of views. But by January 2014 they were getting more than 1,000 a day — she has now amassed around 1.5 million views — and was inundated with orders from as far afield as Alaska.
‘It made me realise I now had an internet business and it could be global,’ says Tricia, whose daughters have left careers in marketing and banking to work with her.
‘I’m having the time of my life,’ she says, emphatically. ‘Recently I was invited by Facebook and Google to speak to delegates about social media, the power of the internet, and running an internet business.
‘We sixtysomethings are giving younger generations a run for their money and I’m ambitious for my company to become the go-to cosmetics brand for older women.’
For fellow granpreneur Pam Palmer, 68, a chance conversation over a bottle of Prosecco with her daughter led to the pair setting up their luxury leather handbag business, Peony & Moore, in 2010.
HAVING spent 25 years as a finance manager in the motor trade, Pam admits that ‘ retirement didn’t seem very attractive’ and she was gripped by a sense of there being more still to achieve.
‘My daughter was planning to return to work as a marketing consultant after having her children but when we were chatting about our dreams, we happened on the idea of a handbag business,’ recalls Pam, who lives near Bath. She has been divorced for 17 years and has two children Matt, 44, a pilot, and Lucy, 42, plus four grandchildren.
The pair did their homework, including visiting a leather trade fair in Milan, and found a gap in the market between the cheap bags on the high Street and expensive designer ones.
They decided to create a range of good quality, leather bags with a nod to fashion at around the £200 mark.
They now design their own collections — from clutches to totes — which are made in Portugal. Their business has grown four-fold in five years, selling more than 600 bags per year through their own website and other online retailers. They have just launched three new designs in collaboration with Barbara hulanicki, founder of iconic Sixties brand Biba.
Pam admits: ‘I can’t deny some people are sniffy about my age. They assume I’m just helping out, rather than being half the brains behind the business. That attitude fires me up to do even better.’
having advised countless women on how to reinvent themselves post 50, fellow entrpeneur Ceri Wheeldon concurs: ‘Ageism exists, but society is finally becoming more accepting of successful older women.’
Indeed, some of the greatest British businesswomen, including entrepreneur Deborah Meaden of Dragon’s Den fame, fashion guru Mary Portas and City ‘superwoman’ nicola horlick, are over 50. As Ceri Wheeldon says: ‘We’re still battling the outdated perception of fifty and sixtysomethings as has-beens who aren’t in touch with modern business. But, in fact, older women are more confident, measured and tech-savvy than ever before, and we have more life experience and realism to bring to business.’
And research from a global entrepreneur study reveals a higher percentage of businesses set up by the over-50s are successful, versus those launched by younger age groups. Pam says she loves the challenge of juggling her roles as a hands- on grandmother and businesswoman.
‘There are times I’ve had to take work calls with my 18-month- old grandson clamped to my hip. It’s still a juggling act,’ she says. ‘ But I wouldn’t want my life to just be full of gardening and reading, I need more of a buzz and being a businesswoman keeps me young.’
According to Anne elliott, a lecturer in sports psychology at Middlesex University who specialises in exercise uptake and wellbeing in middle age — there are countless health benefits to being a granpreneur.
‘The old adage is that you’re never too old to learn and those who start businesses in later life are proven to have an increased sense of rejuvenation,’ she says.
‘They have to use their cognitive powers to take on new skills, which can boost their memories. Launching a business also means a person will have to move more and widen their circle of acquaintances, all brilliant for boosting wellbeing.’
nurse Marion Foreman can certainly attest to this. From qualifying as a personal trainer five years ago, she is now at the helm of her own business, Forefront Fitness. She owns two gyms and has developed an online health assessment and fitness tool used by clients around the world.
‘I work longer and harder — 75 hours a week — than I did in my career as a palliative and cancer care nurse, but I’m driven by my desire to help the over-40s be healthier,’ says Marion, 62. She lives near Cambridge with third husband Steve, 41, who works with her. She has four children, aged 29 to 37, and eight grandchildren.
‘I’d noticed most personal trainers were younger than my youngest child, but this can be a deterrent to older women,’ she says. ‘My age group is hugely under-represented in the fitness industry and our exercise needs are different in middle and later life.
Still, it must be daunting launching a business in your 60s when you could feasibly be putting your feet up or going on a world cruise?
‘It would have been daunting at any age and, of course, I have panicky moments,’ Marion admits. ‘ But I couldn’t have set up a business in my 30s. Life was too complicated with young children and more pressure to earn an income. only now do I feel qualified to be an entrepreneur, in part thanks to the wisdom I’ve acquired from a long working life.’