Was Walt Disney really rejected over 300 times before finding success?

The answer

According to Disney company lore, Walt Disney was turned down approximately 302 times by bankers and financiers while seeking funding for Mickey Mouse and his theme park vision. Lenders told him the concept of a cartoon mouse as a mascot would never work, with some warning that 'a huge mouse on screen would terrify women.' Before Mickey, Disney had already suffered a devastating setback when his distributor Charles Mintz seized the rights to his first successful character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, in 1928, along with most of his animation staff. Disney created Mickey Mouse on the train ride home from that meeting. The character debuted in Steamboat Willie on November 18, 1928, and became a cultural phenomenon that launched a multi-billion-dollar empire.