Startup School For Seniors
Suzanne
Noble
Co-Founder
Mission
Advantages of Age offers business training programs to empower individuals over 50 to become successful business owners. Our eLearning-based program, Startup School for Seniors, combines self-paced instruction with facilitated group sessions. This cohort-based online program can be completed over 2 or 8 weeks and is delivered through a secure platform, providing each participant with their login and password for access and to ensure complete confidentiality.
The course addresses challenges that older learners face, such as a lack of self-confidence, complex needs, and lack of exposure to successful entrepreneurs of similar age, race, and gender. It enables participants with caring responsibilities (1 in 5 people over 50) to work on the programme within their free time.
The course includes 25 hours of pre-recorded video lessons, regular group sessions and 1-on-1 mentoring delivered via Zoom. The programme is built on a secure leading learning platform (Kajabi) with integrated QA, which has recently undergone an accessibility improvement project thanks to an innovation award from the Design Age Institute/Royal College of Art.
Category
Education and Skills
Additional Information
Over 320 people have already graduated from Startup School for Seniors since October 2020 and it has had great success developing new entrepreneurs from diverse ethnic communities, as well as from more economically disadvantaged areas (Startup School for Seniors London programmes already comprise 33% from ethnic minorities and 77% women):
35% of participants earned money from their business by the end of the course
65% said that they were personally confident or very confident moving forward
81% said they had sufficient business skills to start and grow their business.
58% felt able to create video content for their online presence
15% of participants came to create a business to solve a problem they experienced from age.
Facilitators and Advantages of Age co-directors are Suzanne Noble and Mark Elliott. Both are aged 50+ and experienced entrepreneurs who are relatable and engaging in their delivery style.
Both have experience devising, delivering and facilitating enterprise and start-up programmes for many groups, including the over 50s with organisations such as NESTA, The Design Council, the University of London Goldsmiths College and the School for Social Entrepreneurs. Both have mentored various venture-starting and venture-building programmes, including Virgin Zoom, Startup Loans Co. and Startupbootcamp.
Suzanne Noble is an award-winning entrepreneur and Action Learning Set (ALS) coach with a background of 20+ years spent in PR.
Mark Elliott comes from a High Growth Software Business background. He is the author of Power To Change: Business Success Guides, a social entrepreneur and a qualified Business Coach.
