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Practice, Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2023
Business advisers were steering autistic founders away from their interests
In short
A panellist told the 2023 Autistic Pride Day Symposium that business advice runs on neurotypical thinking. Another described starting instead with a scribble on a page.
Read it instead, 4 minutesThe transcript
The story
The difficulty a panellist at the 2023 Autistic Pride Day Symposium described for new autistic founders begins with the first appointment. An autistic person starting a business who goes to see a business adviser, the panellist said, is taken through an entrepreneurial process built on neurotypical thinking. The mismatch shows up in two ways, the panellist said, and the proposed answer was to change the advisers.
Kyriakos Gold, who hosted the session, had asked for the one piece of advice the panellist would give an autistic person who wanted to become an entrepreneur. The panellist said that was hard to answer at the time, because of what that person would meet. The first problem was the founder’s interest area. Autistic people want to stay with their area of interest, the panellist said, and an adviser often tries to pull them away from it, while the founder struggles to explain that the adviser is taking them away from their passion.
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Sources the story draws on
- Breaking Down the Five Habits of Expert Entrepreneurs with Saras Sarasvathy (opens in a new tab), Darden School of Business, University of Virginia (Darden Report)
- Specialised Business Training Program (opens in a new tab), Amaze
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