I'm not putting people who start those types of businesses down. Please don't try to make it sound as if I am.
The article was about entrepreneurs. It was not about your idea of startups. Your comment was defending a concept not present in the article.
I've never liked the word "startup". Ontologically it means that something's begun. I don't feel comfortable assigning more meaning to the word than that, though the connotations have been assigned.
Imagine an article on a web site about the NFL that began "When you think of a football player, you probably imagine someone six foot five who weighs 250 pounds. But a new study shows the average football player is actually four foot eight and weights 80 pounds." Because the average football player is actually a little league player.
So yes, the study described in the article is about founders of small businesses rather than startups (in what you call my sense, meaning the generally accepted sense of the word). But what makes it misleading is that it appears on a site about startups, begins by talking about examples of startups, and then claims it's surprising that people starting small businesses have different characteristics. It's not surprising at all that the average person opening a gas station or starting his own landscaping company is 40.
On one hand, we have loads of unemployed well educated young people right now that can afford to risk their time. These may be more likely to seek seed capital? Go big or go home models?
On the other, we have loads of seasoned industry vets with stable lives and cash in the bank to make a go of a new IT business. These may be more likely to start with one or two paying clients? Steady growth models?
Found this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=728689
Now, I will at least know what pg is referencing. I still won't know what other commenters mean by a 'startup' unless they are synced up on this too. I wonder how you can fix that?
The respondents' businesses probably attract low-risk bank credits instead (i.e. the money entrepreneur must pay back at some point). This makes things different. Those businesses are probably into retail, or consulting, or something similar; the potential leverage is lower there. And these are not the sort of businesses that get most of the attention on HN.
Club Penguin was a tech startup that sold for mid-nine figures without raising any VC. Mahalo actually seems more like a plumbing company than a tech start up in a weird way, but has raised VC from top tier firms.
The big distinction is building a business that can make you money while you sleep. something that can scale beyond the hours you work vs. being constrained by billable hours or their equivalent.