Stage (Not Age): How to Understand and Serve People Over 60--The Fastest Growing, Most Dynamic Market in the World

The ＄22 trillion opportunity that can be unlocked only if you rethink everything you think you know about people over sixty.

In the time it takes you to read this, another twenty Americans will turn sixty-five. Ten thousand people a day are crossing that threshold, and that number will continue to grow. In fifteen years, Americans aged sixty-five and over will outnumber those under age eighteen. Nearly everywhere in the world, people over sixty are the fastest-growing age group.

Longevity presents an opportunity that companies need to develop a strategy for. Estimates put the global market for this demographic at a whopping ＄22 trillion across every industry you can imagine. Entertainment, travel, education, health care, housing, transportation, consumer goods and services, product design, tech, financial services, and many others will benefit, but only if marketers unlearn what they think they know about this growing population.

The key is to stop thinking of older adults as one market. Stage (Not Age) is the concise guide to helping companies understand that people over sixty are a deeply diverse population. They’re traveling through different life stages and therefore want and need different products and services.

This book helps you reset your understanding of what an ＂old person＂ is. It demonstrates how three people, all seventy years old, may not even be in the same market segment. It identifies the systemic barriers to entering this market and provides ways to overcome them. And it shares the best practices of companies that have successfully shifted to a Stage (Not Age) mentality.

This practical guide prepares companies and marketers for an inevitable shift they can’t ignore.

Susan W. Golden is the Director of dciX, which is part of the Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute (DCI). dciX initiatives engage experienced professionals to focus the next chapter of their lives on building innovations for both social and economic impact. She also leads the Longevity Innovations Special Interest Group, an idea and project accelerator, in partnership with the Stanford Center on Longevity, where she’s been a visiting scholar and Fellow since 2017. Golden is the founder of Golden Health Innovations, where she advises startups in the longevity space. Previously, she was a partner at Schroder Ventures, specializing in life sciences and health care investments. She was also a partner in the Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund. Golden has served on the Board of Dean’s Advisors for the Harvard Chan School of Public Health, worked at Genentech, and was an Assistant Professor of Public Health at Boston University Medical School. She received her doctorate from the Harvard School of Public Health and attended the Harvard Business School Program for Management Development.

You can find out more about Susan Golden at: dci.stanford.edu/susan-wilner-golden