Paige Finn DohertyFounding Partner, Behind Genius · Founding Partner at Behind Genius Ventures

what can founders learn from rejection?

15 Feb 2024 · 1 min

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In this brief dialogue, two speakers discuss how founders should handle rejection. Speaker A notes that there is a baseline level of rejection that founders must accept as inevitable, acknowledging that some people will never understand or adopt their product. Speaker B expands on this by emphasizing the need for early, perhaps unwarranted, unconditional self‑belief, which is crucial for securing the first customer and the first investment check. The exchange highlights two core lessons: normalizing rejection and cultivating strong self‑confidence to overcome it.

I think there's a base level of rejection you get to and you're like, okay, so some people are not going to get what I'm doing and we're going to keep doing it anyways.
Well, and there's this really interesting line to walk, right? Really early on, you have to be willing to have this unconditional belief in yourself that perhaps is not even warranted. And that is the thing that will get you your first customer, your first check.
Yeah.
But at some point, the thing that got you here is no longer the thing that gets you there. And often that comes at the, I don't know, first 3 to 10 customers. People often get really attached to the thing that got them their first check or their first customer and have a really hard time hearing the feedback. And it's really common that you see a couple customers churn.