I Interviewed 6 Entrepreneurs & Their Mentors About How We Innovate For Aging

Here Are 8 Insights From Our Conversations

As the population gets older, there is a need for new companies, platforms and services to help older?adults get the most out of life and live more joyfully. In July and August I had the exciting opportunity to dive into the topic of innovation for aging in partnership with?Alive Ventures, a venture studio that launches and funds new companies that enrich the lives of adults 65 and older. We produced ‘Alive Live Clubhouse Edition’, a 6 part conversation series between entrepreneurs and their mentors across different generations where we discussed how they would think about creating businesses and ideas that offer solutions to support older adults.

The series took place in the?Love Extremists Club?over 6 consecutive weeks and our conversations wove across emotional, spiritual and intellectual topics and explored sectors ranging from education, and skill sharing to community engagement, sustainability and artistic empowerment.

After engaging with 12 brilliant people, all with their unique perspectives and insights on innovation and aging, it’s challenging to summarize what was discussed in one simple, elegant takeaway. With that in mind, I’ll frame my learnings through five focus areas; community cultivation, well-being, sustainability, future of work and technological innovation. In each focus area I’ll share some of the key lessons that came through our conversations and summarize the 8 major learnings that may inform your next project or venture.

Community Cultivation

1. Karla Ballard shared her belief that ‘there are no more throw away people’. We all have a role to play in supporting one another at different life stages and each one of us has deep value in community and society that goes far beyond our careers and our paychecks.

Alyssa Ghilardi knows a lot about community cultivation as an active leader in the co-creative, multi-generational event series?GLBL VLLG?and the former head of operations for?Ying. In the VLLG Jams, big events where creators of all stripes circle up to share themselves and their work, all voices and forms of expression are welcome and encouraged. Older community members stumble into the space often unaware and bring immense value when they share a story or piece of art with the group.

With Ying, a skill sharing platform that uses time as currency, Karla Ballard has built a space for neighbor to neighbor support and connection. The community becomes the currency and there’s incentive for cross-generational relationships that can offer different skills and resources based on a member’s lived experience and needs.

Davion Ziere, founder of?Origyn, spoke to the need for community care when a family member is going through hardship. When his mother, Q Talecia Garrett, faced a breast cancer diagnosis, there was an immediate need for support from inside the family and beyond as she went through treatment and healing. This type of mutual aid happens naturally in a strong community but can also be systematized through platforms like Ying or other tools that determine areas of need and allocate local human resources.

Laura Modi, CEO and Cofounder of?Bobbie, has integrated cross-generational community values into her company in many interesting ways. Her ‘motherboard’ is a group of advisor mothers who are living across different life stages and each bring unique perspectives to the business. When asked what problem she wishes someone would solve, Laura articulated the need for a ‘rent-a-grandparent’ child care service where local retired folks could help young families care for their children, especially when blood relatives aren’t close by.

Well Being

2. Creating products and experiences that foster connection and vitality can help overcome some of the physical and mental challenges we face as we age.

As a young mother and busy social worker, Q Talecia Garrett faced a breast cancer diagnosis that challenged her and her entire family to come together in supporting her health journey. Rather than make decisions from a place of fear, she chose to live everyday from a place of gratitude. She acknowledged it was challenging to find optimism after such a damaging health experience but felt lucky to have the support of her family and community. Her experience illuminates the opportunity to create products that help people orient towards establishing a path of connection and vitality thus improving their quality of life when faced with big health challenges.

Karla Ballard spoke of getting older and noticing judgement creeping up and affecting her relationships and her own well-being. ‘I began to check back and wonder why, as I’ve seasoned, I’ve become more judgmental… and that really bothered me.’

We can learn from Karla that we all have the ability to check in with ourselves and redirect away from mental judgements and into more acceptance and appreciation for the people around us. Q Talecia also shared the power of choice and self-awareness when it comes to embracing and celebrating life after a difficult physical health journey.

3. Attuning our intuition as a source of guidance for ourselves and those we lead is a crucial skill to develop as a successful entrepreneur and a healthy human being.

Across the board the entrepreneurs and leaders I spoke to had practices that supported their self-awareness and sensitivity to an internal compass. Martin Hosking is the CEO and Founder of?Redbubble, the Australian company acquired?TeePublic?which was co-founded by CEO Adam Schwartz. While both leaders come from different generations and backgrounds, Adam is in his late 30s in New York while Martin is an Australian in his 60s, they share a set of values around mindfulness and contemplative practice that has been integral to their partnership and leadership styles.

Melissa (CEO) and Jenefer (Founder / Formulator) Palmer of?Osea?skincare also use meditation, sleep, humor and healthy movement to stay connected to their intuitive intelligence. That intuition led Jenefer to become a pioneer in the natural skincare industry in the 80s and has since supported Melissa as she has become CEO and remains a focused, compassionate leader for the company and the natural skincare industry at large.

Sustainability

4. A modern company consistently designs for sustainability and environmental impact at every stage of its growth.

Across the board just about every leader and mentor shared their concerns with environmental impact related to our climate, our planet and the life that depends on it. In addition to concerns around production and supply chain at RedBubble, when asked what problem concerns him most beyond his own company, Martin discussed the issue of ‘e waste’. ‘Throwing out a phone or a computer or even an old toaster… it’s like a psychological barrier… what’s going to happen to this thing, all this effort and time and money which has gone into creating all the valuable things in there’ he said.

Chip Conley, Founder of the?Modern Elder Academy, spoke about the regenerative farm at the center of his communities. People coming to study or live in New Mexico or Baja, where MEA has facilities, are engaging in regenerative agriculture and feeding themselves through working the gardens and farmland. Additionally the cross generational experiences and education at Modern Elder Academy build an interdependency that supports all life regardless of age.

Both Karla Ballard and Alyssa Ghilardi consider the environmental impact of physical product consumption in general and have been building Ying and GLBL VLLG as companies focused on localized experiences, time and skills exchange instead of physical consumer goods. Creating alternative economies focused on our value as creatives, teachers and supportive neighbors offers a low energy, environmentally informed way of life where our resources are shared amongst the collective.

Finally, Melissa and Jenefer Palmer have been focused on sustainability in their packaging and their ingredients since the founding of Osea in the 90s. The company recently became carbon neutral and their primary ingredient is an invasive seaweed so by removing it from the ocean they’re able to promote healthier ecosystems and human skin health. Additionally they have built coalitions with other skincare companies to generate demand for more sustainable packaging options and are lobbying state and federal governments for more regulation around environmental impact in their industry.

Future of Work

5. Workers at different stages of life have unique needs that must be supported by internal and external commercial, nonprofit and government interventions.

Xavier Helgessen, co-CEO of?Enduring Ventures, is focused on finding great businesses with owners who are ready to retire or shift their careers. He looks to baby boomers who are often selling a business they’ve built or kept alive and finds great opportunities in supporting their exit and acquiring a healthy company.

Laura Modi brought up the additional responsibilities and costs of being a parent. She said, ‘We are still way behind as a country offering paid maternity leave… Outside of that, we don’t support the extended family, those that are having adoptions and even miscarriages as we think about what it means to become a parent… we do not have the policies or systems in place to be able to support them… as companies, what are we doing to push forward and change policies for these modern parents?’

Both Chip Conley and Martin Hosking have sold companies, stepped away and come back into the workforce, sometimes reporting to younger bosses, as was Chip’s experience at AirBnb or just returning to a different environment as was the case with Martin returning as CEO of RedBubble just as the pandemic was beginning. These cross-generational teams, when leaders and employees may come out of retirement or report to younger executives, present unique challenges for older adults re-entering the modern workplace.

6. The modern workplace facilitates cross-generational mentorship as standard practice.

Beyond just Martin and Chip’s return to the workplace following an exit or retirement, Chip and Laura had strong cross-generational mentorship as co-workers at AirBnb as did Adam and Martin at RedBubble. Adam also expressed his excitement about mentoring his own employees who were often fresh out of college and seeking career or life advice. Even within the family business Osea, with Jenefer and Melissa and the rest of their family, there is a normalized multi-generational dynamic that brings constant opportunities for learning, growth, humor and challenge.

Technological Innovation

7. We need compassionate technologies that support our human, socio-emotional needs.

When asked about innovation in product design, Davion Ziere brought up the need for designers to learn empathy and compassion for all living things and systems. ‘I think that it is an innovation right now to actually consider all forms of life when you’re making something… you don’t even have to have a major product yet, just the decision to build consciously’ he said.

Another key opportunity that came up in my conversation with Q Talecia and Davion was the need for organizational and emotional tools that support families through crisis management. When an emergency comes up, we have very few go-to resources that help us get organized and focused on what needs to be done to address things in a supportive way. Additionally there are emotional needs of all parties involved and rarely are those needs addressed effectively when all hands are focused on the acute issues as was the case when Q Talecia faced a cancer diagnosis.

Xavier articulated that as we age, we want to teach more and have wisdom to share but there are few tools that make it easy for older populations to create their own content and distribute it online.

8. Human memory is the new data and we should be able to leverage technology to optimize it.

In speaking with Xavier and?Vic Contoski, his 86 year-old cousin and professor emeritus at the University of Kansas where he taught creative writing and American literature, we explored various ways Vic communicates with his own intuition as well as other spirits and energy through dreams, poetry and occult practices. Vic shared that when we die or have a near death experience, we often run through our entire life vividly in a very short period of time. Both Xavier and Vic brought up the question as to how we can gather this ‘memory’ as data, record it ambiently throughout our lives and share or learn from it.

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As you can see, the exploration of cross-generational mentorship with 12 incredible leaders and entrepreneurs brings a wealth of valuable information and lessons that can inform how we build new businesses, solve important problems, stay healthy and cultivate community. Having had the pleasure of going deep with all of these amazing individuals, I encourage you to find them and support their projects.

I want to thank everyone involved, my guests, their support teams and the Alive Ventures crew for sponsoring this series. I’m also deeply grateful to the 2500+ listeners who tuned into our live salons on Clubhouse.

Ethan Lipsitz is living with brain cancer as a?visual artist?and?Love?Extremist, a media platform he founded that advocates actionable love for ourselves, our relationships, our institutions and our planet. Find him interviewing leaders to discover new definitions of love extremism on the podcast?Love Extremist Radio, moderating community salons in the Love Extremists Club on?Clubhouse?and traveling the world as an artist, speaker, media producer and facilitator.