The ever fascinating Library House bloggers have compiled a graph of startup founder ages from data in their VenturePedia database.

I’m 28 now. I’m currently working in my second and third startups. While I could only really call myself a founder of the first business, the now dead Cohack, I’m as close as dammit in the other two.

I often wondered about this question: am I behind the curve or ahead of it? Library House’s data suggests the answer is well ahead. They don’t reveal too much, but of more than 600 founders, about 10 were in the 25-29 age bracket. 1 in 60 isn’t bad. Indeed, the curve will be bearing down on me for at least another 10 years yet.

I’m inclined to see this more as youthful rashness on my part than precociousness. I probably should have spent longer kow-towing my way through established organisations and learning my trade a bit more. Successful entrepreneurship often seems to follow the Salesforce.com model, their two founders were both successful Oracle staffers before starting out on their own. Then again there’s always the Larry-and-Sergey/Chad-and-Steve/David-and-Jerry model, but I’m ancient for that.

A final note on the data. Library House’s data comes from companies seeking funding. It is possible, even likely, that there are more companies founded by younger kids, but they’re less likely to be looking for funding, have the skills to even pass the initial requirements to get into the DB, etc. I should also mention that I have yet have a successful business, but we’re all working hard on it.