The night belongs to failed young entrepreneurs. Anna Yona tells of her start-up Wildling Shoes and her biggest mistake. She founded her start-up in May of 2015, collecting 75,000 euro through crowdfunding. Her idea was to manufacture a shoe that gave children the feeling they were walking barefoot. She received 1,500 orders in advance. Then came the shock. A material which had been inserted under the sole reacted after being mixed with the adhesive, resulting in blue feet and defective products worth 60,000 euros. She said it was as if “The dream you’ve been working on is going up in smoke.” At least she could sell some of the shoes at a discount.

Most people who fail with their start-ups are not keen to talk about it. Four years ago in Mexico, however, there were two young entrepreneurs who thought that this was a pity. The idea of F***-up Nights was born. Since then, the concept has spread rapidly and can be found in 150 cities worldwide. In Germany, there are events in Frankfurt, Leipzig, Hannover, Berlin, Cologne and Hamburg.

In Bonn, it’s not easy to find entrepreneurs who are willing to talk about their failures. That’s one of the reasons that Johannes Mirus wants to bring the concept to Bonn. He is still looking for a place to hold the evenings. He learned about the concept more than a year ago and found it charming. “It’s about encouraging people to dare to achieve - and to show that you are allowed to fail,” he said. He personally experienced failure with a web agency he started in 2002, leaving him in a mountain of debt.

Nine out of ten start-ups go under in Germany. But only a quarter of those who fail are willing to go back to their old jobs. Most want to try again with a new venture.

Breaking the silence, cultivating a culture which accepts failure, and learning from the mistakes of others - these are the aims of F***-up Nights. The failure culture in the U.S. is regarded as a model. Joshua Cohen, who advises small start-ups and large companies as a consultant, knows the differences in handling mistakes on both sides of the Atlantic. The American commutes between the U.S. and Germany and has personally experienced a start-up failure during the dotcom bubble. "Germans are afraid of the risk and want to avoid it at all costs," he says. But setbacks are the rule. In America, entrepreneurs who fail are seen in a different light, they are people from whose experiences others could learn. "It goes like this. To avoid mistakes, you have to learn from mistakes - from your own or from others,” says Cohen. "Fall down and get up again, life is like that," he adds.

For Johannes Mirus, it is clear that the “Fehlerkultur” is also needed in Bonn. Translated literally, the word “Fehlerkultur” would mean a culture of failure or mistakes, but the deeper meaning of the term is that failure should be expressed openly and receive acceptance from society. "A year ago in the start-up phase of my current project, I would not have dared to talk about my failure," said Mirus. He feared he would deter potential clients. "It is precisely this culture of secrecy that we have to break up," he says.

(Orig. text: Andreas Dyck)