Entrepreneurs eager to catch 'silver dollars'

The business of aging is looking like a sunrise industry.

Senior fashion, senior beauty care and senior recreation centers, among others, took less than a decade to boom as they offered services to older folk. That makes many think that it meets the definition－an industry in its relative infancy that looks ready to grow even more quickly－as revenues grow into the billions of dollars.

Duan Mingjie, 31, founder and CEO of AgeClub, a Beijing-based consulting and incubation service platform targeting senior care businesses, is optimistic about the industry's outlook.

"Older people make up a growing proportion of the total population, and they are probably the generation with the largest spending power. Unlike younger people, many seniors are now free from housing and job pressures. Most seniors have more savings and are more willing to spend money to please themselves than previous generations," Duan said.

"From nursing homes, to food, clothing, commuting and entertainment, the businesses of aging, whether it be products or services, are becoming more mature, which offers immense opportunities to entrepreneurs," he said.

The market size of all senior care-related businesses would reach 5.9 trillion yuan ($925.71 billion) by the end of 2021, according to estimates from iiMedia Research, a data analysis agency based in Guangzhou, Guangdong province.

Duan, with a degree in biotechnology, worked in a consulting firm for two years and then a research agency before entering the senior services industry at the end of 2016.

"Starting in 2013, I worked in the department of senior healthcare at the consulting firm. The senior care industry was nothing like what it is today. There were few big companies, and very limited capital flowed into the sector," Duan said.

"In the same year, the government released a document that listed a few comments on accelerating the development of senior care services, sending a strong signal that the government was encouraging private businesses to enter the industry," he said.

Duan was referring to the document released by the State Council in 2013, which stated that the government would innovate in creating mechanisms and increase policy support for private businesses and communities to set up nursing homes, start senior care businesses and build up industrial clusters. Before that, senior care agencies were mainly set up and run by the government.

"At that time, the industry started to slowly grow. Two years later, I moved to vcbeat.top, an online healthcare platform that offers industrial analysis and reports. There, I made contact with many people working in the industry, and they gave me a lot of courage to start my own business," Duan said.

Duan founded AgeClub at the end of 2016 with a partner who specialized in technology, and total investment of less than 200,000 yuan. Duan and his partner started off by writing senior care-related business analysis articles on the company's WeChat subscription account.

"I've always been very optimistic about the industry's prospects. The only concern was that our business might not survive before being able to see the market boom, as we entered into the industry too early and very soon might have run out of money," Duan said.

Duan said he was lucky to meet an angel investor in the middle of 2017, who put over 1 million yuan in his business and supported them as they went through tough times.

"At that time, we had only 30,000 yuan in the company's account and were very close to giving up. It can be quite frustrating to stick to a career path that you have faith in but not see things get any better with time. I often had a feeling of being lost, experiencing anxiety and even feeling fear," Duan said.

"It was at the end of 2018 that I suddenly felt the growth of demand for senior services and the possibility that our business might be able to make something of it. At that time, we held an offline forum that attracted over 200 participants. We earned nearly 200,000 yuan from that event," he said.

Between 2017 and 2018, AgeClub received another two rounds of investment totaling about 10 million yuan, and found another two partners. "Now our business is on the right track and all we need to do is to continue with our efforts while waiting for the market to boom and grow," Duan said.

The company now offers consulting services to companies that run businesses in the senior care sector such as Vanke, and training services for teams whose jobs are related with senior care in companies like Procter & Gamble and Alibaba.

It also holds exhibitions on business innovation in the senior care sector. "We aim to attract over 1,000 companies in the sector to our exhibitions in three to five years, and build our exhibition into the largest of its kind in China," Duan said.