After teaching in universities for 40+ years, Connie Inukai is finally retiring.
But sitting at home and gardening in retirement are not options for this Baby Boomer. Now that the kids have grown, she is following her creative and entrepreneurial passions. For an encore career, she is looking at life differently. She enjoys solving problems that come with aging.
Inukai likes to spend time with friends, mostly Baby Boomers. What started out as a casual dining experience with girlfriends, turned into a business venture.
“We have worked hard all our lives, so spending time with friends is a well-deserved treat. We love to go out to restaurants. It’s too bad our eyes don’t cooperate,” Inukai said. “Every time I go out to dinner with friends, we have to pass around reading glasses to see the menu and bill. We also look around the restaurant for some light. We usually end up using the flashlight on someone’s smart phone. Then after an enjoyable meal, the bill comes, and we go from a ‘fun mode’ to ‘math mode.’ Now, we can certainly all do the calculations in our heads, but it is much more fun to let Tip ‘n Split do the work.”
Many industries are still focused on young people, but adults 50+ continue to be the most powerful consumers in the marketplace.
While younger people prefer to use smartphone apps to figure out a tip and split the bill, Baby Boomers, currently over 100 million adults in the United States, prefer to leave the wifi behind and talk with each other during dinner.
Inukai said smartphone apps don’t “solve the problem of our eyes—and not being able to decipher the small print on the menu and bill in dimly lit restaurants.”
So this Baby Boomer entrepreneur invented Tip ‘n Split. Tip ‘n Split does it all, from magnifying the menu and bill and lighting it up, to figuring out calculations.
After four decades, Inukai is putting away her teaching materials and learning how to manufacture a product, market it, and figure out the accounting process.
According to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), “Of 76 million people above 50 and nearing retirement, about half have interest in entrepreneurship,” said Jean Setzfand, vice president of financial security at the AARP. “We’ve seen an uptick in the number of older individuals interested in pursuing entrepreneurial endeavors, either as a passion or out of necessity. One in six Baby Boomers expected to go into business for themselves.”
UPDATE
September 25, 2015
Inukai’s invention has hit the ground running. The entrepreneur and her product were featured on QVC recently. Let’s all send a roar and best wishes her way. Check out her feature below:
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