Entrepreneurs mourn failed businesses
In the US, the idea that corporations can sometimes be considered ‘people’ in the eyes of the law has been the source of plenty of controversy. So it may not be surprising that the new trend of holding funerals for failed startup businesses began in America in 2014.
Britain was not far behind. The UK’s latest Startup Funeral event took place earlier this year at Campus London, a working space for the global TechHub community of entrepreneurs that doubles as a venue for events. And TechHub is planning another London event on 25 November.
Startup Funerals involve business owners getting together and discussing their failed businesses, with each giving eulogy-like speeches about the ‘death’ of their ventures. Some entrepreneurs say preparing for the events made them look more clearly at the mistakes they had made.
At the time of the original Startup Funerals, TechHub Events Manager Paul Forster told the BBC: “The value for the speaker is that they get to feed back into the community what they didn’t have initially – it’s imparting that knowledge that failure isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“It’s about saying, ‘this is what I did’ and, ‘this is how I did it’.”
Tags: Business, crash, entrepreneur, entrepreneurs, fail, startup