Experienced founders knew how to make it better through the pandemic?

Fewer obvious problems to solve with tech hitting you in the face every time you walk out the door.

More hard tech / bio companies - which can often require a technical founder who’s got PhD + industry experience to make it

Lots of low hanging fruit when the internet (as we know it) was being created in the early days. Most of that has been already being picked.

Many younger founders wanted to ride the hype train of the time, amassing views over profitability. Now, investors have realized that many of those companies are not sustainable and have tightened their purse strings. Many unicorns do not exit well (hello Uber)

Early on in any new platform / tech, possibly more gamified & culture driven innovations take place. With maturity, and mass adoption needs, more serious & deeper innovation is needed and possibly mature founders address these better. Crypto /DeFi is one area which will see so :)

I bet this trend at least partially reflects: • the general shift in opportunity from consumer to B2B in the last couple of decades (as those with work experience can see the problems to solve) • repeat founders just aging and crushing subsequent startups (eg, Ramp, Rippling)

Interesting statistic: Median age of unicorn founders is 34. From @alitamaseb ‘s book Suoer Founders.

Those under 28 years grew up.

Internet and Mobile tech helped create D2C startups which did not require much prior experience. Low-hanging-fruit opportunities are now mostly taken. Startups today require much more domain expertise.