Role of the grey entrepreneur in startups: an empirical study of the impact of age diversity on innovation performance

Abstract This study quantitatively examined the role of middle-aged and older professionals in innovation. Using data from 126 domestic startups obtained through a proprietary survey, we investigated the relationship between age diversity among startup founders and innovation performance. This study focuses on startup founders, offering a direct view of a firm’s growth process and distinguishing it from previous research that primarily addressed R&D and new business development in established firms. This focus allows a more explicit measurement of the relationship between founder diversity and innovation outcomes. The analysis revealed three key findings. First, many startup founders have a positive impact on business growth. Firms founded by multiple founders had higher gross sales than those with a single founder. Second, in scenarios with an increasing number of startup founders, an inverted U-shaped relationship exists between founder-age diversity and gross sales, suggesting that greater age diversity alone is insufficient. Instead, the optimal level of age diversity is a gap of approximately 20–30 years. Third, including founders in their 30 s was key to enhancing gross sales. Namely, having a core group of founders in their 30 s, supplemented by founders with more experience, increases the likelihood of achieving higher sales.