Successful failure: The marketisation of failure in an entrepreneurial economy

Abstract

In our era of late capitalism, we can bear witness to the ongoing creative fashioning of successful failure into a commodity which has grown in value. This article discusses two topics: firstly, attitudes towards and narratives of failure in the entrepreneurial start-up space; and secondly, how ‘successful failure’ is increasingly becoming marketised beyond the entrepreneurial start-up space, as people face the escalating power of an injunction to ‘learn from failure’, and are expected to perform accordingly, as we now live within what has been described as an entrepreneurial economy. The example that initiated this line of research has been the phenomenon of ‘Fuckup Night’ events: ‘Fuckup Nights is a global movement and event series that shares stories of professional failure. Each month, in events across the globe, we get three to four people to get up in front of a room full of strangers to share their own professional fuckup. The stories of the business that crashes and burns, the partnership deal that goes sour and the product that has to be recalled, we tell them all’. In essence, the message is as follows: ‘Yes, you should tell everyone about your failures, as the path you have trod on the route to success’. The marketisation of triumphalist narratives of failure illustrates the rise of a new ‘ideology that justifies engagement in capitalism’, calling for ‘workforce participation’ in a new way (Boltanski and Chiapello, 2007 The New Spirit of Capitalism. London and New York: Verso: 8). This article examines and theorises the commoditisation of successful failure: how certain kinds of failure have been packaged and produced for impact, how – properly packaged – successful failure has become a profitable and lucrative asset and how new markets now thrive around these newly commodified narratives of failure. The article explores the context for the emergence of appropriate market conditions for the production, circulation and consumption of ‘successful failure’ as commodity.