Embracing Failure: How Sharing Mistakes is Inspiring a New Wave of Entrepreneurs
Business success is often celebrated and widely known, but should failure also be embraced and appreciated? Vithushan Namasivayasivam, who once worked as a software engineer for a major global music streaming service, believes it should. He made a significant mistake in his role—one that most people wouldn’t typically want to share with a room full of strangers. Yet, Namasivayasivam recently opened up about his blunder to dozens of people at an event in Toronto, Canada.
His mistake, made seven years ago, was related to his task of ensuring that 10-second looping videos submitted by bands and solo artists to accompany their tracks would play smoothly on users’ mobile phones. These videos were being tested in Canada at the time.
They were supposed to stream to users' phones only once, but due to an error Namasivayasivam made, the videos kept re-downloading onto people’s phones every 10 seconds. For users not connected to Wi-Fi, this quickly used up all their mobile data. Namasivayasivam only became aware of the issue after he came across complaints on an online forum. One person had written that the error had “killed his data,” while another commented, “I hate this feature so much. Whoever came up with this should be fired and shot.”
Despite the embarrassment, Namasivayasivam shared this story on stage in front of a crowd full of strangers. The event was part of a global movement in which more than 250 cities now participate, featuring public talks where entrepreneurs and business leaders, particularly in the tech industry, share their failures and how they recovered from them. The idea is that discussing these experiences can be therapeutic, offering valuable lessons to everyone present and encouraging questions and discussions.
Reflecting on his experience, Namasivayasivam told the audience in Toronto: “It was at this moment that I realized I had messed up, and that’s when feelings of impostor syndrome, anxiety, and shame came flooding in.” He was one of three speakers at the event. Later, he shared that it felt good to talk about his face-palm moment and how one can bounce back from such a blunder. Today, Namasivayasivam is the founder and CEO of Skillify, a Toronto-based software coding training provider.
One of the audience members, Bill Murray (not the famous actor), works for the Canadian software firm Padiem, which creates systems for managing timesheets and payrolls. Murray said that Namasivayasivam’s story particularly resonated with him.
“If you’ve never made any mistakes as a coder, you probably weren’t innovating enough,” said Murray. “Most people want to hide their embarrassing moments or failures, but because the speakers open the floor with some of their hardest moments, it sets the stage for everyone to let their guard down and really get to know one another.”
Murray added that tech entrepreneurs shouldn’t only celebrate their successes. “When you study someone’s success, it’s almost like asking what lottery numbers they picked to win. Of course, you can learn a lot from successful people, but the idea of openly discussing your failures feels like there is much more to learn from that.”
Marsha Druker, who organizes regular failure talks in Toronto, says she looks for speakers willing to be open about their professional failures. She also wants them to share what they learned from their mistakes, having had time to reflect on them. She notes that a common theme among tech entrepreneurs who fail is “a story of resilience and coming out on the other side, and recognizing that failure shouldn’t be a taboo topic we don’t talk about openly.”
This approach to discussing typically off-limits topics is why such celebrations of failure began in Mexico City in 2012, says Carlos Zimbrón, a Mexican tech entrepreneur who first conceived the idea for these events. During a barbecue at home with friends, Zimbrón expressed how dull it was to attend “typical conferences with keynote speakers talking about their successes, and how it was rare to hear the B-side of that story.” Soon after, he and his friends held the first failure talk in the same backyard.
As word spread about the Mexico City event, other entrepreneurs in cities across 80 countries worldwide started their own similar events. These gatherings usually feature monthly talks, paired with a Q&A session after each speaker. Zimbrón says that these talks, many of which are later uploaded to YouTube, “can be inspiring for people who may have gone through the same problems.”
the end, however they select themselves back up and attempt once again, "she says."I ' m thrilled to see this recognition of that'sort of durability spreading right into other locations and cultures.".