- By David Silverberg
- Business journalist, Toronto
Vithushan Namasivayasivam is now the boss of a successful training company
Success in business is rightly celebrated, but should failure also be celebrated?
When Vithushan Namasivayasivam previously worked as a software engineer for one of the world’s leading music streamers, he made a huge mistake.
It was the kind of mistake you usually don’t want to share with a room full of strangers. But Mr Namasivayasivam recently revealed his mistake to dozens of people at an event in Toronto, Canada.
His mistake seven years ago involved his work to ensure that when bands and solo artists submitted 10-second loop videos to accompany their songs, they would stream smoothly to people’s cell phones.
At the time, the videos were being tested in Canada.
They should have been streamed to users’ phones only once, but due to Mr. Namasivayasivam’s mistake, they were constantly re-downloaded to users’ phones every 10 seconds.
For those not connected to Wi-Fi, all their data is quickly used up.
Mr Namasivayasivam only became aware of the error when he read complaints on an online forum. One person wrote that it “killed their data.”
Another said: “I hate this feature so much. Whoever invented this should be fired and shot.”
Failure Talk Events Now Happening in Cities in 80 Countries
While most of us might have wanted to keep these memories under lock and key, Mr. Namasivayasivam revealed it all into a microphone while standing on a stage in front of a room full of strangers.
The gathering was part of a global movement, with more than 250 cities now participating in public showcases showing how entrepreneurs and other business leaders, primarily in the technology sector, fail and then recover from their blunders.
The idea is that it is cathartic to talk about such things and that everyone present can learn from their mistakes and ask questions.
Mr. Namasivayasivam told the crowd in Toronto: “That’s when I made a mistake, and that’s when the feelings of imposter syndrome, anxiety and shame kicked in. flocked.”
He was one of three speakers at the event. Afterwards, he told the BBC that it felt good to share his face-to-face moment, “and how anyone can recover from that embarrassment.”
Today, Mr. Namasivayasivam is the founder and CEO of Skillify, a software coding training provider based in Toronto.
Bill Murray (not the famous actor) works for a software company. He was in the audience watching Mr. Namasivayasivam and said the story particularly touched him.
Bill Murray says it’s good to learn from business failures
“If you’ve never made mistakes as a coder, you probably haven’t innovated enough,” Murray says.
“Most people want to hide their embarrassing moments or failures, but as the speakers open the floor with some of their most difficult moments, it opens the door for everyone in attendance to let down their guard and truly get to know each other .”
Tech entrepreneurs shouldn’t just celebrate their wins, Murray adds. “When you study a person’s success, it’s almost like asking them what lottery numbers they played to win.
“Of course you can learn a lot from successful people, but for me, being open about your failures made me feel like there was a lot more to learn.”
Marsha Druker, who regularly organizes failure conferences in Toronto, says she looks for speakers who are willing to go beyond just talking openly about their career failure stories.
Instead, she also wants them to “tell the public what they’ve learned about this mistake, now that they’ve had time to think about it.”
She says a common theme of what tech entrepreneurs face when they fail is “a story of resilience and coming out the other side, and recognizing that failure shouldn’t be a taboo subject to talk about.” we don’t speak openly.”
Venturing into this often-forbidden topic is why such celebrations of failure began in Mexico City in 2012, says Carlos Zimbrón, a Mexican tech entrepreneur who first came up with the idea for the parties.
At a barbecue at his home with other friends, Mr. Zimbrón said he expressed how boring it was to attend “a typical conference with keynote speakers talking about their successes and how rare it was to hear the side B of this story.
Soon after, he and his friends held the first discussion about failure in the same space.
Carlos Zimbrón had the idea during a barbecue
As word of the Mexico City event spread, other entrepreneurs in cities in 80 countries around the world have since launched their own side parties. They organize monthly conferences, coupled with a question-and-answer session after each speaker.
Zimbron says the discussions, many of which are then uploaded to YouTube, “can be a source of inspiration for people who may have been going through the same issues.”
He adds: “When you can connect to someone else’s mistakes and see how vulnerable they are by sharing that story, that’s when you can connect with other entrepreneurs. »
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Leah Edwards is both a director of the American investment fund Lighter Capital and a lecturer on leadership and innovation at the University of California at Berkeley.
She says she likes that these public discussions about business failure “normalize that something is hard and it takes a certain number of at-bats (a baseball term for the turn of a hitter) in order to find the right combination of teams and hitters. market opportunity and the right product or service.
Ms. Edwards adds that Silicon Valley has long shown a high tolerance for failed start-ups, and it’s good to see this trend spreading.
“There will always be entrepreneurs whose businesses ultimately don’t work out, but who get back up and try again,” she says. “I’m excited to see this recognition of this type of resilience spread to other regions and cultures.”
