Kentucky Model .. How to start a successful company after retirement?

"I am against retirement ... the only thing that makes a person alive is if he has something to do."

(Colonel Sanders, founder of KFC )

If the mid-life crisis that usually appears after the age of forty is considered a difficult crisis for those who are going through, then there is a more difficult crisis that appears in the age of the fifties and sixties specifically related to the professional side: You live your best career times, the specter of retirement appears every day promising you a monotonous life dull with every Its details, and at the same time you are too big to start a new business from scratch. Crisis closer to the maze manifold choices.

This crisis is increasing in coincidence with a major problem we live in this age, which is the problem of linking success to a young age, where the most prominent examples of success globally for young adolescents or in the twenties The "Little Genius" model that established a successful startup that generated millions of dollars and then became a billionaire, it is necessary to be aware that this image is completely misleading, and that the reality is filled with models and examples of businessmen and entrepreneurs from all over the world who started their entrepreneurial career after exceeding fifty years of age. And they achieved great accomplishments that they did not achieve during the half century that they lived before, to the point that they became full of hearing and eyesight not only in their country, but in the whole world.

Entrepreneurship at sixty-six

"I live and work in San Francisco ... the usual thing is that if you were looking for financing for your startup, the first thing that you would do is you will find yourself competing with a number of young adults working in the hi-tech sector. Well, that would have been To a great extent frightening and frustrating to me, I am an old man who has shoes that are older than most of these young people! "

When Paul Tasner reached the age of sixties, he also had achieved the highest job positions in his company after a job that lasted for forty years. On that day, Paul went to attend one of the usual annual meetings, to be surprised by his name included in the list of those excluded from work in the company and those referred to retirement. This position was one of the most shocking situations for him in his life, as the man did not understand the idea that he spent almost all his life in the company, then he is dispensed with all his experiences and professional maturity, on the pretext that he has become too old.

At first sight, Paul seemed to be the only way to spend long hours in front of the television with his wife, or to spend time with his grandchildren and engage in backyard gardening and animal husbandry. That quiet, boring life spent by the elderly, which is a prelude to them - according to Paul - to wait for the moment of death.

But he was carrying another path in his sleeve. After settling his pension in his company, Paul Tasner decided to launch his startup in the field of waste recycling and environmental protection at the age of sixty-six, taking advantage of his long experience in employment. Surprisingly, that company has become one of the most promising and emerging American companies in this field, and it has won attention and admiration, whether from the American government or the pioneering supportive institutions, which made his company infested with offers of investment, expansion and support.

Paul rejected the boring retirement life, and decided to spend the rest of his life at the height of meetings, departments, development, patent registration, employee annexation and management, rather than spending it on his deathbed. This eventually led him to give his exciting lecture on the stage "TED" in June 2017 as one of the most important pioneering lectures that confirm that the retirement age is the most appropriate age to start in the entrepreneurial work with the fewest possible errors.

Colonel Sanders ... an old man refuses to retire

There is no one in the whole world who does not know the face of Colonel Sanders, even if they are completely unaware of his name. Everyone knows what this man looks like, and everyone has seen it perhaps more than movie stars or even pictures of political leaders around the world. This is because a city in the world has almost no picture of its calm smile, gray hair, and the word “KFC” next to it. Colonel Sanders is the founder of KFC, which is now one of the largest and largest fast food chains around the world, and its brand is synonymous with American cultural expansion in recent decades.

His full name is Harland David Sanders, one of the most important and famous entrepreneurs in America and the world, not only because he is the reason behind the emergence and success of the Kentucky chain of stores, but because of the story of the struggle that hides behind this tremendous success that extends in most countries of the world. He was born in a humble family in which he had to work early especially after he showed a very modest level in the school and ended up expelling him. He worked in almost all professions, from agriculture to service in the army, and not ending with work on trains and river ferries, selling tires and working at gas stations.

Later, Sanders' exhausting career began in life, where he worked as a supervisor of industrial workshops, then married and had three children, one of whom died, then found a firefighter job. He worked in this position for some time, and he was studying evening law by correspondence, but he was not successful in the end in continuing to work legally, so he moved to another city to work as a distributor of insurance policies, then established a company that ended in failure. He moved back to Kentucky to join a company as a sales representative.

After a long and exhausting journey, Sanders fought in his childhood, adolescence, youth, and even his period of liquidity, he ended up at the age of forty as director of a gas station in Kentucky, where he cooked chicken pieces completely different from the usual, and presented them to the station's customers through a small restaurant founded in 1930 in the name of Sanders Court and cafe. Over time, customers came to this station specifically to eat the chicken cooked by Sanders, which made it a celebrity in this region, to the extent that the mayor of Kentucky granted him the title of "colonel" in recognition of his skill in cooking.

Later, the restaurant suffered a painful blow when the highway changed and customers no longer passed through the gas station, causing Sanders to close the restaurant and retire. Over time, the talented old man could not stay at home without work, and he offered some Kentucky investors - who were famous for them - to invest their money with him to establish a fast-food restaurant based on fried chicken specifically, which was what happened and the restaurant was opened in 1952, and it was Sanders is 62 years old.

"Launch the Colonel Joak" campaign by KFC 2015

Since this time, Sanders has played a heroic role by marketing himself for his secret mixture of cooking fried chicken, to the point that he himself went to restaurants in America to sell them the chicken he makes for a share of the profits. Later, in 1964, he is 72 years old, and he sold his company's rights worth two million dollars (currently equivalent to 14 million) to a group of investors, provided that the company’s official spokesman remains and his image appears on its logo.

Today, there are approximately twenty thousand KFC branches around the world, and hundreds of thousands of employees work for them. Its business has also been expanded to include various types of meals, mostly related to the secret mix chicken, which was developed by Colonel Sanders, who passed away at the age of ninety years. (2, 3, 4)

Ice cream is better than retirement

In 1995, it seemed clear that Wally Bloom had gone mad. On this date, he had completed his 57th year in a successful career that lasted for more than 20 years in the supermarket chain "Kruger Corporation". Excellent salary, great job portfolio, annual holidays, health insurance, and then - and this is the most important thing - the company was providing an excellent retirement bag for an expert who is as old as he is about to reach retirement age.

The Governor of Bloom decided to abandon all these privileges and start to implement a wonderful idea, which is the opening of a special "ice cream" company called "Denali Flavors" that makes ice cream with different flavors that are completely different from the flavors on the market, the most important of which is the "Moose" flavor Tracks "which was considered the first and biggest hit for his startup that helped him achieve rapid success in record time.

In spite of the difficulties he experienced - like any other company - his extensive experience in the world of marketing and selling that he gained from his long career helped him to overcome all difficulties, and the company expanded its business to become one of the most famous ice cream companies in America. Today, the company offers sundae with over 40 different flavors, generating profits of $ 80 million annually. (5, 6)

Ray Crock .. Life begins at fifty-two

"I was 52 years old at the time , and I had diabetes and atherosclerosis. I also had a bitterness and part of the thyroid gland. However, I was convinced that the best of life is still in front of me!" ( 7 )

This was the situation of "Ray Crock," the founder of the giant McDonald's empire in 1954 as he himself described it in the book "Grinding it out: The Making of Mccdonalds", where he worked as a publicity representative to sell milk shake to companies and restaurants. A man of old age, over the age of fifty, has all the usual diseases of aging, as well as being married and has a family, obligations and burdens.

However, as soon as Ray Kroc saw the opportunity when he visited the McDonald's two brothers' restaurant, his entire youth returned to him. With Ray Crooke's tremendous experience in marketing, selling and advertising, he managed to transform this small restaurant into a transcontinental American empire, transformed into a symbol of American culture and imperialism in the world, where the global American influence is always associated with the slogan of McDonald's restaurant that exists in every city. Almost in the world.

The highlight of Ray Crooke's founding trip - or stealing as he is accused by most of the neutrals - of the McDonald's empire was that he was imbued with marketing and advertising experiences in various fields that allowed him to monitor the opportunity in its finest form, and turn it into a global project. He started his business as a seller of paper cups, and tried to play the piano and jazz, but he failed. He also tried to learn cooking in a restaurant, but he was unsuccessful. In the end, Ray Kroc settled on the job of a delegate to sell the milk shake machine and spent a long time in his life roaming the different states to sell these machines, until he met the McDonald's brothers.

In 1984 Ray Crook passed away at the age of 81, more than half of whom spent an ordinary employee of a milk company that no one knows and suffers from social, economic and humanitarian problems, while his real life began with a number of exceeding fifty to achieve within 30 years spent in his old age what he could not achieve Change in his youth of success, excellence, fame and influence. (8, 9)

In the end, of course, not everyone is eligible to launch their startup company at an advanced age, each according to his circumstances, capabilities, capabilities, experience and maturity in life stemming from a career in a specific field that enables him to jump from the usual job path to the ladder of leadership and start-up companies. Timing and proper implementation remains the first criterion for the success and failure of any "entrepreneurial" experience, whether for a young man in his early twenties or a sheikh in the early seventies.