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Lived experience, Think Autism Melbourne 2026
Founders at Think Autism Melbourne say pitching, crowdfunding and investor meetings reward performance
In short
At Think Autism Melbourne in 2026, three founders at the autistic entrepreneurs showcase and panel described raising money as a test of social performance. One of them said the turning point came with an end to masking.
Read it instead, 5 minutesThe transcript
The story
A founder at the autistic entrepreneurs showcase at Think Autism Melbourne on 30 May 2026 gave the session its clearest account of what fundraising asks of an autistic founder. The founder had responded to it, they said, by masking harder. “I thought masking would make me investable.” Then they stopped, and found they had been wrong. “Authenticity turned out to be the better strategy.”
Building a startup was hard for anybody, the founder said, and so were fundraising and the uncertainty of backing yourself before others can see the vision. Their particular barrier was the social learning curve of entrepreneurship. There is a perception layer to fundraising, they said, that most founders handle automatically, knowing who to update, what to signal and when to make noise. They gave an example. They had applied for more than $2 million in grant funding and had not told a single investor, until someone else mentioned applying for $1 million and they realised they were doing that too and had simply not said anything.
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Sources the story draws on
- How Do Venture Capitalists Make Decisions? (opens in a new tab), National Bureau of Economic Research, NBER Digest (Linda Gorman)
- Investors Prefer Entrepreneurial Ventures Pitched by Attractive Men (opens in a new tab), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, via DSpace@MIT
- Study says attractive men fare best in gaining venture capital (opens in a new tab), MIT News
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