How Neurodivergent Entrepreneurs Can Build a Business That Works for Them
The challenges ADHD and Autistic entrepreneurs face, and how the right systems, planning, and support help you build a business that works with your brain.
Topic
Work and career
Books
- Taking Charge of Adult ADHD, Russell A. Barkley, Christine M. Benton
Russell Barkley has spent his career researching ADHD, and this is his guide for the adult living with it. It explains how ADHD works, lays out treatment and medication choices, and then gets specific about work, home, and relationships. This is the version backed by decades of research, not one person's story. Get the 2021 second edition. His own site still lists the 2010 first.
- Brain First Business, Amanda Perry
Amanda Perry has founded more than one company with ADHD, and this is her method for building a business around that wiring instead of against it. It covers running the operation, shaping the work around how your attention runs, and avoiding the burnout that hits ADHD founders hard. For entrepreneurs who keep building businesses their own brain can't sustain. She's UK-based.
- Faster Than Normal, Peter Shankman
Peter Shankman built companies with ADHD, and this is his account of the routines and systems he built around his brain to do it. Focus, productivity habits, and running a business when your attention doesn't run on command. It's personal, high-energy, and anecdotal, and it frames ADHD as a superpower. Know that going in.
- Laziness Does Not Exist, Devon Price, PhD
The title is the argument. Devon Price says what gets called laziness is almost always an unseen barrier, exhaustion, or burnout, and the book makes the case across work, shame, and the overworked people who get blamed for not doing more. It's a cultural argument, not a clinical text, and it isn't specific to autism or ADHD. If you've ever called yourself lazy, or you manage someone you've called that, read it.
- Nerdy, Shy, and Socially Inappropriate, Cynthia Kim
Cynthia Kim was diagnosed autistic as an adult and wrote the manual she wished she'd had: how to handle work, friendships, marriage, and basic self-care when your brain runs on different rules. Practical and specific rather than inspirational. It uses Asperger terminology. For late-diagnosed adults, women in particular, who have the diagnosis now and need to know what to do with it.
- Neurodiversity at Work, Amanda Kirby, Theo Smith
Amanda Kirby and Theo Smith wrote this for HR and leadership: how to recruit neurodivergent people, how to onboard and support them, and what the organization gets out of it. It's UK-centric. For the manager or HR lead who was told to do better on neurodiversity and needs an actual plan instead of a poster in the break room.
- The Canary Code, Ludmila N. Praslova, PhD
Ludmila Praslova is an organizational psychologist, and her argument is that workplaces failing neurodivergent people are failing everybody, just more quietly. She lays out a framework for building workplaces that don't, with intersectionality built in instead of bolted on. For employers, HR, and anyone with hiring power who wants the structural fix, not a one-off accommodation.
- The Neurodiverse Workplace, Victoria Honeybourne
Victoria Honeybourne's employer guide covers autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and related conditions in one place: what adjustments look like, how to manage, and how to communicate with neurodivergent staff, clients, and customers. It's practical rather than theoretical, and the legal framing is UK. For the business owner or manager who needs to know what to do on Monday.
- The Smart but Scattered Guide to Success, Peg Dawson, Richard Guare
Peg Dawson and Richard Guare built an executive skills framework, and this adult edition starts with a self-assessment so you can see which skills are strong and which keep failing you. From there it matches strategies to your profile for time, organization, work, and home. It isn't ADHD-specific. It's for the person who keeps buying systems built around someone else's weak spots.
- Unmasking for Life, Devon Price, PhD
Devon Price's follow-up to Unmasking Autism moves from understanding the mask to living without it. It covers the practical skills for friendships, family, work, and romance, and the communication each one takes when you stop performing. For autistic and AuDHD adults who finished the first book and then wondered what an unmasked week actually looks like.
- Welcome to AuDHD, Megan Griffith
Megan Griffith was diagnosed with both autism and ADHD in her late twenties, and she wrote this practical guide from inside that. Daily life, work, identity, and staying out of burnout when the two pull in opposite directions. If every book you've picked up explains half of you, this one covers both. It's lived experience, not clinician-authored.
Posts
Reframing Neurodiversity in the Workplace: From Liability to Asset
How adults with ADHD can figure out what accommodations they need, decide whether to disclose, and reframe neurodivergence at work as an asset, not a liability.
The Importance of Self-Advocacy
Self-advocacy means telling people what you deal with and what you need. Learn how it helps at home and work, eases RSD, and why boundaries and rest matter.
Imposter Syndrome and ADHD
Why adults with ADHD are prone to imposter syndrome, how it shows up at work and at home, and how therapy, coaching, and support help you fight back against it.