Can Anyone Become an Entrepreneur?

The answer might surprise you, and it matters more than ever

TLDR: The entrepreneurial explosion isn’t coming. It’s here. AI has collapsed the cost of starting a business to nearly zero, solo-founded startups have surged from 24% to 36% in five years, and the fastest-growing demographic of new entrepreneurs isn’t Gen Z… it’s people over 55. But the real question is not whether you can start a company. Instead, it’s whether you can find and solve problems for a living. And that is a skill anyone can develop.

I hear it every week on my Moonshots podcast, in my Substack comments, in messages from my Abundance Community: “Peter, you keep saying ‘become an entrepreneur,’ but that’s not realistic for most people.”

I hear you. And I want to take this head-on, because I think there’s a massive misunderstanding about what entrepreneurship actually means, and who it’s really for.

The Definition That Shifts Everything

Here’s the thing most people get wrong: entrepreneurship is not about raising venture capital, pitching VCs, or building the next billion-dollar unicorn.

At its core, entrepreneurship is the act of finding a problem and solving it in exchange for value.

That’s it.

The barber who opens a second chair because the neighborhood needs one is an entrepreneur. The retired teacher who starts tutoring online using AI tools is an entrepreneur. The nurse who builds a health coaching practice on weekends is an entrepreneur. The bike tour guide I met in Morocco who used ChatGPT to brainstorm new business ideas based on his skills and location: he’s an entrepreneur.

If you can identify a problem, propose a solution, and deliver value to another human being, you have the seed of entrepreneurship in you.

The rest is execution, and execution just got radically easier.

AI Just Demolished the Barriers to Entry

Here’s what’s changed. Twenty years ago, starting a business required significant capital, specialized skills, and access to resources that most people simply didn’t have. You needed a lawyer, an accountant, a web developer, a marketing team, and months of runway.

But today, you can register a business in 6 days. You can build a website in an afternoon with AI. You can write a business plan in an hour. You can create a marketing strategy, draft legal documents, design a logo, analyze a market, and build a financial model: all with tools that cost less than a Netflix subscription.

Source: Traditional costs from SBA and Entrepreneur.com surveys (2005-2010). AI costs reflect current pricing of ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro, and free-tier AI tools (2026).

The numbers bear this out. In the three months from November 2025 through January 2026, Americans filed 1.56 million new business applications: the highest for any three-month period since tracking began in 2004.

Solo-founded startups surged from 23.7% of all new ventures in 2019 to 36.3% by mid-2025. Four out of five entrepreneurs have now integrated AI into their operations.

Source: EntrepreneurLoop analysis of Crunchbase data (2019-2025). Solo-founded startups surged from 23.7% to 36.3% of all new ventures.

We are seeing the democratization of entrepreneurship in real time.

The Age Surprise: Your Best Years Might Be Ahead of You

There’s a persistent myth that entrepreneurship belongs to twenty-somethings in hoodies. The data says otherwise.

The mean age of founders behind the top 0.1% fastest-growing companies is 45. Not 25. Forty-five. Individuals aged 55-64 represent one of the fastest-growing segments of new entrepreneurs in America.

And in the data I’ve been tracking, the 70-80 age group has shown the most dramatic acceleration in startup activity since 2020.

Source: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), “Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship” (Azoulay et al., 2020). Analysis of 2.7 million founders in U.S. Census data.

So, why is that?

Because older entrepreneurs have something no amount of youthful energy can replace: domain expertise, professional networks, pattern recognition from decades of experience. And, critically, they also now have AI as a force multiplier that removes the barriers that previously made starting late impractical.

I recently spoke with a colleague who used to spend three weeks structuring a new book. Using AI, he now does it in three hours. That’s much more than a marginal improvement. That’s a paradigm shift. And it disproportionately benefits people who already know what they want to build but previously lacked the bandwidth to execute.

If you’re 60 and thinking, “It’s too late for me” the data says you’re wrong.

Your experience IS the product. AI is just the amplifier.

The Two Decisions That Matter

Regardless of your age, background, or current situation, entrepreneurship begins with two fundamental decisions:

First: take 100% responsibility for your financial future. Not 80%. Not “mostly.” One hundred percent. The moment you stop waiting for someone else to provide your income is the moment everything changes.

Second: accept that you must create value before you get paid. This is the mental shift that separates entrepreneurs from employees. Employees trade time for money. Entrepreneurs create value and capture a fraction of it. The order matters: value first, compensation second.

These are not personality traits you’re born with. They’re decisions you make.

And they’re available to anyone reading this right now.

But What if You’re Not the CEO Type?

Here’s where I think the conversation gets really important, because not everyone needs to be the founder.

The future of work isn’t just “everyone starts a company.” It’s about joining entrepreneurial teams and bringing your unique abilities to the table. Think of it less like traditional hiring and more like casting a show. Every great production needs actors, directors, writers, set designers, camera operators, editors.

Yes, the CEO is the director, but the show doesn’t happen without the rest of the cast.

The most valuable people on entrepreneurial teams in 2026 and beyond share a set of traits that have nothing to do with having a corner office:

• Curiosity about how to be useful. Not “What’s my job description?” but “What does this team need that I can provide?”

• Willingness to create value first. Show up with ideas, solutions, contributions: before anyone asks.

• Resourcefulness using ALL of your experience. Every job you’ve had, every skill you’ve developed, every failure you’ve survived… it all counts.

• Purposeful alignment with the mission. You care about what the company is trying to accomplish, not just the paycheck.

• 10x thinking capability. You don’t just do what’s asked. You ask, “How could we do this ten times better?”

• Being genuinely useful to others. The people who thrive on entrepreneurial teams get their greatest satisfaction from making the people around them more successful.

If you recognize yourself in that list (even partially) you have a place in the entrepreneurial economy. You don’t need to quit your job tomorrow and start a company. You can join one. You can freelance for one. You can contribute to one in your spare time while you learn.

Here’s the Real Question…

So, can anyone become an entrepreneur?

Here’s my honest answer: not everyone will. But the barriers that used to prevent people from trying (capital, access, technology, knowledge, youth) are falling away so fast that the remaining barrier is almost entirely psychological.

It’s the decision. It’s the mindset. It’s the willingness to stop waiting for someone else to create your future and start building it yourself.

You don’t need a Stanford MBA. You don’t need venture capital. You don’t need to be 25. You need a problem worth solving, the willingness to create value before you get paid, and an AI that makes you ten times more productive than you were last year.

The tools are free. The information is free. The only question left is: What are you going to build?

To a future of Abundance,

Peter

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