Did you know that nearly 40% of seniors report having a disability? In the category of number obsession, this new snapshot of a government report caught my eye and should catch yours – it is referencing 16 million people. The report notes six types of disability reported in census data: hearing, sight, thinking and memory, walking, self-care and independent living. From the MedlinePlus release: "People older than 85 accounted for more than 25 percent of all disabilities among seniors, although they represented only 14 percent of the overall senior population."
Effective January 2015, AgeTech West, a West Coast network of aging service providers and technology companies, will integrate into Aging2.0, the global innovation network and startup accelerator. The integration will create the ‘Aging2.0 Alliance‘ – a new program for innovative providers and technology companies. The announcement was made today at the 2014 AgeTech West conference: Sync in Seattle: Transforming the Aging Services Experience.
Start with the premise -- Silicon Valley VC firms matter for entrepreneur success. Is this true? And especially, is it true for early stage companies, with founders that are known to VCs; or do angel investors or startup money from friends and family matter more? Instead of speculating, consider the leading Silicon Valley VC firms -- and examine their online featured list of investments. Note mention in this article that the venture 'industry has gone back to its IT- and IT-enabled services roots.' So let's take a look at their historical successes. Sequoia Capital -- health-related investments are disease oriented, big hits include LinkedIn, PayPal, Instagram, Kayak, and eHarmony. For sure, the full list contains many useful tools for people of all ages, but unless we're talking diabetes and glucometers, nothing much that is age-related for seniors.
The numbers of our boomer lives. So you launch your market messages with an assertion about the addressable market for a product. So one of the timeworn ways used is to start with a concept. For example, they are going to turn 65 and are retiring -- or perhaps they are unretiring and starting businesses -- at a rate that is big, really, really, big. So let's consider the following oddity. In 2010, boomers were going to turn 65 at the rate of 10,000 per day for the next 18 years. Then in 2014, you perhaps noticed a different phrase about boomers, including this one from AARP: They are going to turn 65 at the rate of 8,000 per day for the next 18 years. This caused me to wonder, what happened to 2000 of them? Could they have died? Left the country? How many people there are in a certain age range making up an addressable market -- that should be fact, right? Sort of. I turned to Brent Green, an advisor to boomer marketers.
