// The fourth rendition of Perth’s F@#*-up Night was held in front of a packed out audience at the Brisbane Hotel this week. Catharticism was the catch cry…
Admitting mistakes is not easy for many startup founders, and perhaps even harder for corporate types, but it’s absolutely essential.
It’s really hard to change direction. It’s really hard to admit you’re going in the wrong direction. ‘The lady’s not for turning… you turn if you want to,” said British PM Maggie Thatcher in a famous speech to the party faithful.
But mistakes are all part of learning. There’s no such thing as failure, right – isn’t it all just ‘flearning‘ anyway?
And so it came to pass that Fuck-up Nights were born – to celebrate the errors of our ways, to rejoice in our stuff ups, to laugh at our selves and our shameless follies.
318 cities host 1,500+ such events around the world, in 86 countries. 189,000 people (and counted) have attended. So there’s a growing need.
The fourth such event in Perth was held earlier this week down in Northbridge, and it had the vibe of an open mike night for stand-up comedians.
Three brave volunteers bared their souls, two from the corporate world, the other a startup founder.
In seven minutes, and with seven slides, they each derided their mutual hubris and laid bare their litany of tech mistakes, with terrible cost control, exploding scope creep and team mismanagement high up on the fuckuperry agenda.
Founder and CEO of Formalytics Andrew Hall was incredibly open about the travails and near misses of his amazingly tricky MyKicks app. Even the terrible British weather conspired at one point to darken an all-important UEFA demo. Incredibly, he used a WhatsApp group to keep his investors informed, so they could assist as necessary from wherever they were in the world.
Nick Leigh of Bankwest told about a previous website he had to build for Transperth, and Fiona Bishop of Western Power spoke about building an innovation culture at the government organisation.
The crowd laughed along, with many nodding heads of acknowledgement. We’ve all made those mistakes before. We’ve got the T-shirt. We’ve bought the video. Lessons learnt.
What a great event. Here’s a tip for free – don’t miss the next one.
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The event was organised by Kylie and Sven from Impact Seed, and Nate from SOMA. All proceeds went to the Yiriman Women social enterprise in the Kimberley.
To stay informed about upcoming events, visit the Fuckup Nights Perth Facebook page.
All Photos: Courtesy of Michael Goh, Astrophotobear
