Jeff Taylor's in the driver's seat again

Monster.com founder reinvents his own career by launching Boomer -oriented web site Eons.com By Debbie Gardner "I try to see the plane coming before I can hear it . my curiosity is about what's going to happen." It was a passionate Jeff Taylor who sat across from this reporter talking about his latest venture, the Boomer web site Eons.com. We spoke after Taylor's appearance as the featured speaker at the monthly CEO breakfast of the Regional Technology Corporation, which took place it the prestigious Colony Club dining room on Oct. 6. It was a speech where Taylor tossed out his prepared remarks and spoke off the cuff, something I soon learned this articulate and savvy business leader loves to do. PRIME had the privilege of both attending the breakfast, and speaking one-on-one with the tall, fit, Taylor, who, with his cropped haircut, deep blue shirt accenting a charcoal suit and black-framed modernistic glasses, looks and is too young to oficially enter hi newly launched web site for people age 50 and up. After all, this wildly successful entrepreneur and sought-after speaker is only 46. We spent nearly 30 minutes post-breakfast talking in the lobby of the Colony Club. The subjects: Taylor's views on aging, the impact that Boomers are going to have on society and, of course, his newest passion, Eons.com. A man on the [cutting] edge "I've always been able to define my role and craft my career by trying to solve the puzzle of what's going to happen," Taylor said, talking about the success and occasional failure of the many businesses he has started in his life. During his speech to the CEOs at the RTC breakfast, he had casually mentioned starting "four or five businesses " during his unfinished-until-recently pursuit of a degree at UMass Amherst. (This business mogel who earned his Certificate-Owner/President Management Program degree from the Harvard Business School and has an Honorary Doctorate from Bentley College went back and completed his UMass undergrad degree in 2001.) His biggest success, the one that made him a household name and such a popular speaker, was, of course, the Internet-based job-search web site, Monster.com. For the world, Monster changed the way people looked at promoting, planning and crafting their careers. For Taylor, it set him up for his next venture. "In 1993, the average age a web user was 37," Taylor told the CEOs during his breakfast talk. "In 1997, the first users of Monster is becoming a xxxxx. I became increasingly interested in people over 50." Taylor left the hugely successful Monster in August of 2005. He launched Eons.com in July of this year. "It feels fantastic to have an organization that is crafted in my own vision and life experience," he said of launching Eons. "As an entrepreneur, you go through a 360 experience," Taylor told his audience about his experience building Monster.com. "You start out alone, and if you do a good job, you end up alone." Taylor explained that as a startup business grows "you parcel out parts of the job . accounting . finance . and you get more and more qualified people around you, and you start working around their ideas . less around you and your ideas." Eons.com, he said, is his opportunity to build on the Monster experience by finishing the other half of his job-seeking mantra "it's half about a better job, half about a better life." Eons.com with its goal of helping Boomers and seniors "live the biggest life possible" is, Taylor said, about the life part. "We built Monster on the backs of the Baby Boomers, but Monster had to stay focused on newer workers," Taylor said. "I always felt I was practicing for something." Taylor did admit that approaching the half-century mark himself may have also influenced the choice of his new venture. He does like to "see the plane coming." Thoughts on "The new 50" PRIME asked Taylor what he thought of the idea put fort by several media sources that "50 is the new 40." "I think 50 is the new 50," he said. "The only thing that isn't debatable is your age. How old you look, how old you feel, how involved you are, how engaged you are in giving back, the leadership roles you play . are all up for discussion." According to Taylor, aging is all about, "life stage, life styles, but never how old you are." "We need to break down the social taboos about aging," Taylor told PRIME. "A new person turns 50 every seven seconds." He said that ove the next few years "There will be so many people in their 50s and 60s that it will be a disadvantage to be younger. Ageism will be turned on its head." As for the doom and gloom talk about the pressures 50-something Boomers feel because of their position as the "sandwich generation" dealing with the needs of their children and their elders Taylor says its overblown. "We're the center of the sandwich . no one's talking about the center of the sandwich . the bread is there as the anchors but the real exciting stuff is the center," he said. There's a lot more that can be talked about." He talked about the dire predictions that Boomers, who as a group have been less conservative with their money, won't be able to retire. "The realistic outcome for most Baby Boomers is the they will have to work," Taylor said. " But you can turn that idea around in that the idea of retirement . in the definition we know it today is going away." "Retirement is no longer a viable option for someone who wants to stay vibrant and connected to society," he added. He said that, based on his experiences with job-seekers at Monster, the whole notion of retirement has been changing for some time. "It's very common now to have had five or six jobs in your career," he said. "There's more opportunity to move to take those skills elsewhere." "It's more like a graduation," Taylor said of the way Boomers seem to be approaching this transition. "[They're] moving to consulting roles, alternative schedules, taking skills from government sector [jobs] into the private sector or education, and from education into startups." Taylor said he sees this "graduation" approach to retirement as something that may become the accepted norm over the "next 10 to 15 years." "History says Boomers will retire, . the age has actually gone down [for retirement from their first job]," Taylor said. According to statistics Taylor cited, 25 percent of people now retire early, at age 62, 50 percent retire at 65, and 25 pecent continue working at their position. But that doesn't mean these retirees are heading to gated communities in Florida . Eons "sweet spot" "What's out there for people over 50?" Taylor asked. "There's no TV, no radio, no magazines, just an association, as you well know." And though he'd been told trying to attract the Boomer generation was like "herding cats," Taylor felt there was an audience of 50-something men and women out there hungry for information that they could really relate to. "So I built a company for people over 50," he said. And though he's been questioned about not being able to visit his own web site visitors must enter a birth date that proves they are at least 50 years old it seems that Taylor may just have another success on his hands. Forty-four million online users are over 50, 34 million of those are 50 to 64 years old," Taylor told PRIME. At the breakfast, Taylor had told the CEOs his nine-week-old Eons web site was already averaging 7,000 hits a day form 50-plus users. "We're working on a bigger sneak-in to our site [for people age 45-50]," Taylor said, aknowledging that there are plenty of almost-Boomers like himself who want to know what's coming up for them. With sections that offer Boomer-oriented advice on such topics as fun, love, money and health and body, plus the largest, searachable online obituaries list (going back to 1900), a section on memoir writing called lifemaps, and Cranky a search engine that's designed to deliver the top three web sites in response to any query Taylor seems to have hit on a formula that appeals to people seeking answers to mid-life questions. "My long-term experience with helping Baby Boomers craft job choice and careers has given me the view into their lives," Taylor said, referring to the fact that Baby Boomers were some of the earliest job-seekers on Monster.com. "This has given me permission to stickwith this group as he graduate and build the biggest life possible." And for Taylor, his own opportunity to, himself, start from the beginning again at nearly 50 is exhilarating. "I'm back in the driver's seat," he said.