AARP Hearing Center
By the time most folks reach 50, coming up with a plan to change career path to get rich can seem like a long shot. But it can be done. Here are seven people who found their fortunes after reaching 50. They tell AARP how they did it — and how you can, too.
Franny Martin, 70
Franny Martin at her table for Cookies On Call.
Poon Watchara-Amphaiwan
How: Creating a cookie delivery business
Age the hard work paid off: 56
Advice: If your business idea is the only thing on your mind, do it
Franny Martin's career took her down a marketing path, and at one point she was national director of marketing and public relations for Domino's Pizza. But her heart was always in the kitchen.
She spent much of her childhood baking alongside her beloved grandmother. Growing up, her father had encouraged her to follow her dreams. But when he was in the last stages of dementia, she asked herself the question that changed everything: If this were my last day on earth, is this what I would want to be doing?
The answer was no. So Martin put an end to her career in marketing and returned to the kitchen by establishing Cookies On Call. The company delivers a dozen preservative-free cookies for less than the price of a dozen roses.
"At an age when most people are looking at travel brochures to go to Florida, I said, no, let's go to Cookie Land," she says. "When I'm making cookies, I feel like I'm channeling my grandmother."
Martin started out in her own kitchen. Then she rented the kitchen at a nearby grade school. Since then, she has moved three times and now owns her own facility. "I'm making more money now than I did in the corporate world."
More important, she says, "There's not one day since I decided to start doing this that I haven't been happy about it."
The company has expanded to offer cakes, bread and biscotti.
Key to success: "The care and feeding of owning a business is as close to having a child as you can get," she says.
Jeffrey Nash, 62, never designed a thing until the Juppy, a wearable baby walker that easily fits into a bag.
Poon Watchara-Amphaiwan
Jeffrey Nash, 62
How: Inventing a baby walker
Age the hard work paid off: 56
Advice: Stay persistent and resilient
Jeffrey Nash had never designed a thing in his life, which makes his design of the Juppy — a wearable, cotton baby walker that can fold up and fit in a purse — all the more astounding.
Nash, a men's suit salesman who lives in Las Vegas, was attending his granddaughter's soccer game at a park when he noticed a young mother uncomfortably bending over as she struggled to teach her toddler to walk.
Bingo.
"I'd seen this kind of situation thousands of times in my life, and it never meant anything to me," he recalls. "But the very second I saw it, the Juppy came to mind — and it just wouldn't leave."
Unlike many older people, who are often hesitant to act on their ideas, Nash didn't wait a moment. The salesman — who still sells men's suits today, despite his riches — met with different tailors who helped fashion the object that he had in mind.
"The problem is, too many of us come up with ideas — and then talk ourselves out of it. We think of all the reasons why it won't work," he says.
Not that it was easy. To finance the product, he sold his home and car. He stopped eating out. Each prototype concept needed tweaks. And, with no experience in overseas manufacturing, he had to line up a foreign company to make the device in order to keep costs down. He had to learn how to market it, too — even standing outside a baby-products convention in Las Vegas holding a sign that said "The only baby walker that fits in a purse."
Key to success: "Once I have an idea, I stick with it regardless of the pitfalls or obstacles," says the former Marine, who says he is now a millionaire. And because he's older, Nash notes, he has an advantage many younger people don't have: patience.
