Every day for the next twenty years, an average of 10,000 people will turn 65. No matter how many times I hear or see that number, it’s hard to wrap my head around it. With 75 million baby boomers in our country today — defined as those born between the ages of 1946 and 1964 — a huge swath of our population is going through the aging process. And with that comes an unprecedented opportunity for entrepreneurs. I just attended the 2017 What’s Next Boomer Business Summit in Chicago, an annual gathering of entrepreneurs focused on the aging industry. The Summit is organized by Mary Furlong, an entrepreneur who is viewed as a mentor and godmother to aging-related start-up founders. According to AARP, the longevity market, as it’s called, accounts for $7.6 billion in economic activity. Realizing the gold mine of story ideas that can be found in this burgeoning aging beat, I’ve been attending the Boomer Summit for the past few years. Each year, the number of attendees has grown exponentially; there’s clearly an appetite for businesses related to aging. There are so many problems to be solved and innovators springing up to solve them.
What’s always been remarkable to me is the personal experiences that motivate positive change. Whether it’s someone who launched a ride service for seniors after his mother became isolated and housebound or a service to cook meals for seniors that took root after a founder’s grandmother could no longer prepare her own healthy meals, the businesses are often born out of a commitment to solving vexing problems related to aging. I’m not naive enough to believe these entrepreneurs aren’t also after profit, but at least the businesses seem to be founded on the principle of helping a vulnerable part of the population. I’ve latched on to this area as a journalist because it’s so clear that there are fascinating innovations happening in this space every day. And it’s not just in the traditional fields of health care. Technology developments have been a huge force. According to Aging in Place Technology Watch, there’s plenty of opportunity in this sector: the marketplace for technology to assist the many adults wanting to age in place is expected to grow from $2 billion currently to more than $30-billion over the next few years.
Jody Holtzman, AARP’s senior vice president of market innovation, speaking at the Boomer Summit said, “Addressing the needs of over 100 million people is called an opportunity.” I’ve written several articles about the plethora of new businesses being established to serve the crucial needs of Americans as they age, including this one and this one, both for CNBC. I look forward to continuing to track these extremely newsworthy developments over the next few years, as even more boomers (myself included!) continue to age.
Julie Halpert 