This is partially why the average age of a successful founder is late 30s to early 40s at the time of founding.
There’s a lot of focus in the media and in accelerators on the 22 year old with a dream, but it’s nice to have a real adult in charge when the stakes are high.
Not to mention, if you have no work experience, you have no idea what problems are worth solving. So you end up with junk startup ideas from the latest fad / hype cycle.
But a senior partner at a law firm knows the pain points of being a lawyer and they can now start a company to fix them.
And a senior quant at a hedge fund might have some good ideas for automating tedious back office processes.
So it's not too late !
Still, I think you need to be well connected, or already profitable for VC fundraising.
Otherwise your just another programmer with hacked together prototype.
Better than just another Idea Guy with an MBA.
There are two types of idea guys, Idea Guys who actually can get funding.
And those who can't.
I've already wasted too much time creating small prototypes and then cold calling/emailing VCs/YC.
It's a big club and I'm not in it, at this point I'd rather just make weird games with my friends and open source them versus trying to chase a dime.