Driving the project forward is research associate Geoff Pearman, who started his own business at 61 and is a founding member of Senior Entrepreneurs NZ (Dunedin).
There had not been much research on people who started a business for the first time after the age of 50, Mr Pearman said.
"We don’t know how many. We don’t know what sort of businesses they are starting. We don’t know why they’re doing it, and we don’t know what are some of the challenges and issues."
The research project included conducting interviews with people across New Zealand, from a mix of backgrounds and types of business.
Another part of the project was holding focus groups or discussion groups around the country, as well as aiming to understand the support needs of people who were emerging as senior entrepreneurs.
The project was in its final year, but five primary reasons had emerged why people over 50 went into business for the first time.
One group was called the "difference makers".
An example was a man who was researching green energy, who said what drove him was if his grandchildren asked him "what have you done with your life?", he would be able to say he had done something.
"The primary thing that drove them was a sense of wanting to make a difference for people on the planet".
Another group was categorised as "direction changers".
These were people who almost had an epiphany, or inflection point, Mr Pearman said.
There was a point at which they said, "actually, do I want to be doing this for the rest of my working life? No, I want to do something different’."
"There’s an inflection point; they change direction. And that might involve training, or it might involve turning a hobby into a business," Mr Pearman said.
Another group were described as opportunists.
"They spot an opportunity with a business to go for it."
Some might have had some corporate or business experience, but this was still stepping out of their comfort zone in terms of being the first time actually running a business.
The next group were described as "needs must".
"They were necessity driven. They had maybe lost a job; maybe they had been made redundant."
They needed to work and they could not get back into paid work with an employer, so they started their own business, driven purely by the need to have an income.
The final group were described as "investors".
These were people who might have bought a business because they knew the industry, although they had not owned a business before.
So the reasons for people becoming entrepreneurs over 50 were more complex than a simple "push or pull", Mr Pearman said.
