“失败大会”的成功学

    全球都渴望知道如何才能更好地应对商业失败，FailCon正是瞄准了这一点。“要打造一个真正健康的创业生态环境，必须得先有一个环境，能够坦然面对创业者所承担的风险和所经历的失败，”菲利普斯表示。“放眼全球，能做到这点很少。一场FailCon会议能为这些城市的创新者们提供一个畅谈个人失败和挣扎的地方。”

    在美国，从2008年经济衰退以来企业倒闭变得更为常见。美国劳工统计局(Bureau of Labor Statistics)的数据显示，从1994年到2009年，每个季度的“企业死亡”量增长了40%。

    FailCon的共同创始人们都是兼职，他们在业余时间与其他五、六个人共同组织了旧金山会议和国际会议。洛维格里还是一家叫Share Some Style的初创企业的共同创始人。这家公司为用户提供在线和现实的风格指导，以及个人购物建议。菲利普斯现在的工作是游戏设计师。她说，几年前当她唯一的初创企业濒于倒闭时，她开始对失败感兴趣。

    “我当时感觉非常失落和困惑，为什么不成，我应该怎么做，”菲利普斯说。“但不管我去哪里，那时我必须装成感觉非常好，一切顺利，好极了。我心里清楚我的创业企业行将倒闭，但就是感觉没有什么人或什么地方可以求助——那是在 2008、2009年。”

    FailCon发展扩大也带来了一个问题：不同的国家和大陆对于商业失败的看法有怎样的不同？

    一个答案来自瑞士FailCon委员会的连姆•布加。布加最初来自硅谷，2011年共同创立了关注法国创业企业的博客网站Rude Baguette。“我看不出一个法国创业者、一个瑞士创业者或者一个美国创业者有什么不同，”他在一段FailCon视频中说。“不同的是我们讨论的内容，我们选择突出的重点，而不是我们的感受。大家不会谈自己的弱点，比如对失败的恐惧。”

    菲利普斯表示，“事实上我认为失败……在现在的湾区已经不是什么讳莫如深的事情，除非还没有走出失败。全球范围内，情况要糟得多——很多文化将失败的点子或企业看成是人的失败。”

    五年的失败大会已经产生了很多的故事、经验教训以及众多的开放式讨论。有些记录在了视频中；其他则根植于FailCon参会者的心中。例如，洛维格里表示，对于创业时究竟应该具备清晰的商业模式，还是只要走出去获得客户即可，这样的讨论没有一个统一的答案。“我们不能控制一切，”她说。时机、运气和其他东西一样重要。

    说到底，FailCon是接纳失败，认同失败的价值。“曾经在某些事上失败的人，往往未来在这个问题上会看上去更加自信——不是立即如此，而是假以时日，等他们消化了失败后，”菲利普斯说。“他们带着更多经验继续往前走。他们常说，如果没有那次失败，不可能有后来的成功。”（财富中文网）

    译者：早稻米    

    FailCon responds to a global desire to learn how to best respond to business failure. "To create a truly healthy startup ecosystem, you have to first have an environment that is comfortable with its entrepreneurs taking risks and failure," says Phillipps. "Internationally, this is really lacking. A FailCon event gives innovators in these cities a safe place to talk about their failures and struggles."

    Across the U.S., business failure has become more common since the recession of 2008, with the number of "business deaths" each quarter up 40% from 1994 to 2009, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

    FailCon's cofounders work part-time along with a half dozen others who help produce the San Francisco and international conferences. Loviglio also is co-founder of a startup called Share Some Style, which offers its users online and in-person style and personal shopping advice. Phillipps works as a game designer and says that she grew interested in failure when her only startup headed south.

    "I just felt so lost and confused as to what wasn't working and what I was supposed to be doing," Phillipps says. "But everywhere I went, I had to pretend to be awesome, and moving ahead, and doing great. I knew my startup was failing and just felt like I had no resources or places to go -- this was in 2008, 2009."

    As FailCon grows, it raises the question: How different are perceptions of business failure in different countries and continents?

    One answer came from Liam Boogar at a FailCon panel in Switzerland. Boogar is originally from Silicon Valley and in 2011 co-founded Rude Baguette, a site that covers French startups. "I see no difference between a French entrepreneur and a Swedish entrepreneur and an American entrepreneur," he said on a FailCon video. "The difference is what we talk about and what we choose to project, vs. what we actually feel. You don't talk about your weaknesses, like your fear of failure."

    Phillipps says, "I actually think failure ... is not taboo in the Bay Area, but being in the midst of a failure still is. It's worse around the world -- many cultures see a failed idea or business as a failed human being."

    Five years of failure conferences have yielded a lot of stories, lessons, and plenty of open-ended debates. Some are documented in videos; others are firmly rooted in FailCon participants' minds. For instance, Loviglio says that there's no one answer to the debate over whether to start a business with a clear business model vs. just going out and getting customers. "You can't control everything," she says. Timing and luck are just as important as anything else.

    FailCon is ultimately about acknowledging the usefulness of failure. "People who failed at something often seem more confident about it in the future -- not immediately, but in time, once they have processed the failure," Phillipps says. "They move forward with more information and often say that, without that failure, they would not have been able to succeed."