Press
Thank you, everyone, for your attendance and coverage of FailCon! If you have any blog posts, articles, interviews, etc. please send them to cassiph[at]gmail[dot]com and shaun[at]graffitipr[dot]net
You can download our press release here.
FAILCON PRESS COVERAGE
FailCon: Why Screwing Up is Okay
By Scott Budman for NBC Bay Area
“I must admit, after covering hundreds of conferences where companies try their hardest to convince you that everything is perfect, and their path to success is guaranteed to be smooth, FailCon is a breath of fresh air.”
FailCon: Failing Forward to Success
On NPR’s Morning Edition
“At the FailCon gathering, he and other company founders spoke about their missteps. The idea being to help other entrepreneurs avoid the same failure.”
A Silicon Valley Conference About Failing is Big Success
By Ryan Singel for Wired Epicenter
“A whole conference devoted to failure, FailCon, may be a first, but it’s looking like a success, with the likes of PayPal co-founder Max Levchin talking about how he failed repeatedly before making billions making the payment platform for the web.”
For Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs, Failure IS An Option
Written by Dean Takahashi for VentureBeat
“he experience of failure often gives entrepreneurs the drive to make a comeback, accompanied by the constant fear that they could one day experience that failure again.”
How To Capitalize and Profit from Systematic Failure
By Dana Oshiro for ReadWriteWeb
“Fear of failure rarely keeps serial entrepreneurs down. In fact, said Marc Pincus, CEO of Zynga at today’s FailCon event, “As entrepreneurs and programmers we’re used to failing aren’t we? If you look at it as A/B testing until you get the perfect product, then it’s not an issue.”
FailCon: Celebrating High Tech’s Failures, for Fun and Entertainment
By Jay Barmann for SFist.com
“The point of FailCon was not so much to point and laugh, as for tech people to learn from the failures of others and for those who have known failure to talk it up as an asset. As Phillipps puts it, ‘Just the idea that your first company bombed, and you get back on that horse, is a huge sign for a VC.’”
FailCon: Entrepreneurs Explain Where They Went Wrong
By Eve Gumpel for Women Entrepreneur
“She [Cass Phillipps] told the audience at the conference: ‘I’m not trying to change the world with what I’m doing: I’m trying to help you change the world.’ That’s what FailCon was all about.”
FailCon’s Lessons Learned
By Julie Blaustein
“FailCon not only succeeded in bringing in otherwise successful founders and entrepreneurs such as Pay Pal’s co-founder and now CEO & Founder of Slide, Max Levchin to talk about their failures, but it also packed the house with over 340 attendees.”
FailCon on KQED
“Who would pay a couple hundred dollars to attend a conference on failure? Apparently plenty of people!”
Let’s Talk About Failure
written by Amie Vaccaro for Triple Pundit
“I find people most endearing when they speak with humility and honesty about things they’d rather not have you know. FailCon was an amazing day of just that – successful people describing how they failed, rather than how great they are. Here I’ll summarize my key learnings on running a successful start-up for all of you who weren’t able to attend.”
Equations From Failure
By Shalyn Hockey for Change.org
“FailCon showed something different beyond how to turn failure into success – it evidenced patterns in all these stories of failure. And as mathematics teaches us, where there are patterns there are equations. And where there are equations, there may be some method to the madness. Knowing when things fail may make it easier to notice and avoid fail prone ideas.”
Silicon Valley Finally Flaunts Its Failures
by Rich for Rich Work Life
“The San Francisco start up networking crowd always appears so hip compared to their staid colleagues in button-down shirts or polos and khakis on the peninsula.”
Creating Success from Failure
By Tim van Loan for Recurly Blog
“Lately there’s been a large buzz around the coolness of “Failure”. As cliché as as it may be, there is truth to finding success from failure. Recently, hundreds of people attended a full conference dedicated to the subject.”
Epic Fail: Startup Lemons turned to Lemonade
At yKvz.com
“While this may seem like a series of sob stories, the result is actually a list of practical tips on how to reduce risk, manage teams and recover from adversity.”
Get Back On That Horse
By Chaniga Vorasarun for Tonic
“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. And again. And again. That was the message of perseverance coming out of FailCon, a conference in San Francisco where the message of the day was, it’s OK to fail.”
Lessons From FailCon 09
By Amy for SequenceMedia Works
“For once people were openly talking about what didn’t work so well for them and how they’ve integrated those lessons into future strategies to avoid fail.”
Five Startup Mistakes Not To Make – Meebo
By Amie Vaccaro for TriplePundit
“I have a lot of opinions about conferences and two of the things I look for in a conference are that speakers are forced to prepare relevant, thoughtful content beforehand. And the dress is casual. FailCon meets both of these needs. Kudos!”
Smart Young Entrepreneurs at FailCon
At StuffThatILike.net
“Misfits … often make a huge impact. And many a self-proclaimed misfit spoke yesterday at Fail Con, a conference intended to highlight and almost celebrate the many failures of serial entrepreneurship, in order to steer would-be entrepreneurs around those fail points and help increase their odds for success.”
A Conference on Failure: Tell Us Something You Dont Want Us To Know
written by Amie Vaccaro for Triple Pundit
“October is the heart of conference season, and I’m sick of hearing CEOs and investors talk about how great they are and how successful they’ve been. Let’s be real – not every idea succeeds and there’s value to sharing why not.”
It’s Alright to Fail
written by Scott Budman for NBC Bay Area.
“From the ‘where was this when I was in high school’ file, I bring you FailCon: An entire conference dedicated to the idea that in the world of technology, it’s cool to fail….”
To Err is Human, but This Conference is Divine
interview by Tamara Mendelsohn for Eventbrite.com.
“I hope that they [attendees] take away a great sense of inspiration. That hearing these stories of complete failure, from people who figured out how to stand up and move on, will better prepare them and excite them for their own endeavors.”
Guest Speaker on The A-List with Jennifer Lindsay
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WHAT FAILCON ATTENDEES HAD TO SAY:
“Cassie Phillipps’ #FailCon today set a new/better tone for the coming era of entrepreneurship.”
-Stuart McFaul; Founder, Spiral Group
“I quickly met lots of interesting people, leaned quite a bit, and had a great time … I left super-impressed”
- Brandon Schauer: User Experience Designer, Adaptive Path
“I’ve been to a ton of different conferences, but have never come across one that provided that much value.”
-Ryan Huber; Founder and CEO, http://betwyx.com
“I am blown away by the amount of Venture Capital peeps at #failcon today…[and the] demo pit is made up of some of the best startups around.”
-Adolfo Foronda, Nerdstalker.com
“This is a really useful conference. Something about the theme is leading speakers to an unusual level of candor and transparency.”
-Mary Trigiani; Start Up Helper and Veteran Consultant
“More ‘CEO’ on name tags than any conference!”
- Danny Chang @ebaymotors
