This New Year 2018 morning I rambled, or more like stumbled, into the new world of techie Silicon Valley.    I don’t even know how I got there,  I just got there out of the clouds.  In the dim not so distant past of last year I subscribed to a Flipboard magazine called TechCrunch.    I must have been imagining I could become another overnight Silicone Valley success.      I would certainly stand out amongst all the 35-year-old billionaires.

Sadly I missed my nanosecond moment to invest in the next big unicorn.     In this time of a silver tsunami one can’t afford to miss out on a unicorn opportunity.   Maybe I am losing you a bit in all this techie speak.   Perhaps I should explain the back ground to this new dawn.

Here are a few key drivers :-

• Baby boomers are the largest and fastest growing cohort of the US population – 4 million people extra every year, all approaching or already retired.
• Baby boomers have 47 times more disposable income than households headed by 35-40 year olds.

And here is the link to technology :-

• 55 million American seniors are estimated to be on Facebook.
• 4 million are thought to play video games on-line.
• Over sixties are the fastest growing group of on-line daters.

Silicon Valley has not really woken up to this new demographic:-

• Apps for older people have focussed on pill reminders; automatic will generation; health insurance and home aides.
• Most Silicon Valley company founders are under 35, as are most of their staff.
• They are unintentionally ageist and think only of a stereotypical older generation of frail people with limited or no computer skills.

Put all these thoughts together and it illustrates a huge technological blind spot.  Maybe the baby boomers will once again be the generation that changes things.  This time in later life.

In my next blog I will look at devising some more interesting “unicorn opportunities”.