The image of hoodie-wearing college students launching billion-dollar businesses from their dorm rooms has become an entrepreneurship cliché. And while leaders say there are advantages to being a young founder—having more energy and fewer responsibilities—there are also perks to starting a business later in life. Actress Jennifer Garner became a cofounder of $732 million business Once Upon a Farm at 45, and says her age was an asset in the career move.
“I’m so grateful to be a grown-up in that room and not a kid, because I think that I would think I need to prove myself, I need to say ‘This is how we should do this,’ or ‘This is how this should run,’” Garner said recently in an interview with Forbes. “I’m blissfully not motivated by needing to be in charge.”
The now-54-year-old celebrity launched her company with two decades of Hollywood success to her name, including major hits like 13 Going on 30, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Dallas Buyers Club, and Love, Simon. But in 2015, she took a temporary step back from the acting limelight, this time pursuing a different dream: building a business.
Garner joined Once Upon a Farm as a cofounder in 2017, two years after creators Cassandra Curtis and Ari Raz first launched the organic baby food brand (which had expanded to products for toddlers and older kids). And looking back on her entry as “Farmer Jen” eight years ago, Garner is glad the opportunity came later in life. It was an adjustment, and she admits that she’s still learning; before stepping into the business world, she had never taken an economics or business class, and to this day, is still overwhelmed by spreadsheets. But Garner says she loves being “the student in the room, always”—a humility that often comes with decades of work experience.
