Do women who make it just never quit?
This week’s reset is about getting a better answer to a better question. Not “Should I keep going?” but “How do I keep going — am I getting sharper as I go?”
Melanie Perkins was not supposed to be an obvious Silicon Valley success story.
She was young. Australian. Outside the usual investor circles. And she was trying to sell an idea that investors weren’t buying: design software should be easy enough for anyone to use.
Perkins was rejected by more than 100 investors.
More than 100.
Giving up seems like a rational option.
But Perkins kept going.
Not just pitching but using rejection as data.
When investors pushed back, she listened for the pattern. What were they not seeing? What were they not understanding? What did the pitch fail to prove?
She has said that every rejection or difficult question helped them improve the pitch deck. One of the big lessons was that investors needed to believe two things: that the problem was real, and that it affected a lot of people.
That is an important distinction.
Instead of thinking “they don’t believe in me” she thought, “what am I missing here”.
That does not make rejection pleasant, but it makes it valuable.
Canva is currently valued at $42 billion.
And this is where I think ambitious women can learn something very practical from Perkins.
The point is not to keep doing the same and expecting a different response.
The point is to change.
If people do not understand the idea, explain it better.
If they doubt the market, bring better evidence.
If they question your credibility, strengthen the proof.
Persistence is not repeating the same, just louder.
Persistence is learning and improving your case.
The research points in the same direction.
In 2007, Angela Duckworth and colleagues published the paper that made “grit” famous. They defined grit as perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Across their studies, grit predicted outcomes including educational attainment, GPA, retention at West Point, and performance in the National Spelling Bee.
But here is the number worth remembering: grit accounted for an average of 4% of the variance in success outcomes.
Four percent.
It’s something, but it is not magic.
A later meta-analysis by Marcus Credé, Michael Tynan, and Peter Harms reviewed 88 independent samples, covering 66,807 people. Their conclusion was more specific: grit had been oversold, and the more useful part seemed to be perseverance of effort.
In other words, persistence matters.
But not just as keep going.
But also be intelligent about it.
That is the part I would take from Perkins.
She did not just “never quit.”
She kept improving the argument.
She kept making the vision easier to understand.
She kept using resistance as data.
That is very different from blind persistence.
Blind persistence says: If I keep going, it will all work out.
Intelligent persistence says: I am still aiming for the direction, but I am willing to be curios, to learn and to course correct.
This is where we can get tested.
Not at the level of talent.
But at the level of interpretation.
How do you look at the setbacks?
Do you see them as I am not good enough?
Do they make you feel like your work does not matter?
Do they make you shrink your ambition?
Or – do they let you sharpen your next move?
That does not mean every goal deserves endless effort, some things are not worthy of your effort.
Bad partnerships. Bad offers. They are real.
And no time or effort will change them.
But keep going at the right thing and get better as you go along.
One question for this week:
If you treated the next set back as information rather than a final answer, how would you improve before trying again?
I’d love to hear what is shifting in your life and work.
Write to: welcome@standoutjane.com
I read every reply. Send me yours.
Bon weekend.
Image: Melanie Perkins, HSG, 2025.