Failure Stories
In the spirit of Fuckup Nights: the mistakes nobody wants to tell, and the lessons that came out of them.
Why talk about failure?
Success stories inspire but rarely guide: no one really knows why the thing that worked worked. Mistakes are clearer — you can see where it went wrong and teach others not to repeat it.
Every story here ends with key-takeaway cards. If you have no time for the full story, go straight to the cards.
Stories
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Nobody wanted our first product
Deniz Aksoy · Kavra Teknoloji
We built a product for fourteen months without asking anyone. Launch day brought 11 users; two of them were on the team.
Chasing growth against the team
Ceren Yalçın · Marla Dijital
We tripled the team in six months and nobody carried the culture. By year end everyone but the founders had changed.
Chasing the wrong metric
Mert Öztürk · Nova Mobil
For a year we grew downloads and revenue never moved. What we measured said nothing about the health of the business.
Signing without reading the contract
Selin Arıkan · Arkas Studio
To keep our first big client we signed a 40-page contract overnight. We paid for it for two years.
Starting with the wrong partner
Elif Karaca · Terra Gıda
We assumed we shared the same goal and never discussed it. The split cost the company two years.
The unexpected benefit of celebrating failure
Astro Teller · TED
In one moonshot lab, teams are rewarded for deliberately killing their own projects. The talk explains why.
Why an empty talk can still sound convincing
Will Stephen · TEDxNewYork
A satirical talk proving you can say nothing with total confidence — a warning for anyone who presents.