Rejection sensitivity and the long road of raising money as an autistic founder

An audience member at the 2024 Autistic Pride Day Symposium in Melbourne put a question to the entrepreneurship panel. What advice was there for dealing with rejection sensitive dysphoria while pitching to investors? The question, the audience member said, was asked for themselves.

The panellist who answered began by saying rejection was the name of the game. Founders who were not autistic went through it as well. The panellist cited the Canva founders, who, the panellist said, had been rejected many times before they got investment, and the J.K. Rowling story in book publishing. The Canva example has a published record. Fortune reported in October 2022 that Melanie Perkins, the company’s cofounder and chief executive, had been turned down by more than 100 investors before Canva raised money. Founders, the panellist said, were going to be turned away a lot. The first suggestion was a reframe, drawn from the growth mindset idea. Each investor who rejects you can give you some feedback, which you take forward, and the business grows as a result. The second was a kind of selective hearing. Founders had to focus on what was good about their business and learn to ignore some of what investors told them, because they would not all be right. With each rejection, the panellist said, a founder hones their vision and understanding of what is going to work, and “one way or another, the rejection is supporting you”.