Stop being afraid of failure and start embracing it.

FailCon is a one-day conference for technology entrepreneurs, investors, developers and designers to study their own and others' failures and prepare for success.

We all have founded, worked for or invested in startups that have failed. We're smart, we keep up with the latest in technology trends, but sometimes just don't go as planned. How can you predict what will work and what won't? Well, you can't.

But that doesn't mean you should stop trying. It just means you should start exchanging stories of what didn't work and how you pivoted, why you couldn't raise money, what the wrong hires were like, and when you decided it was time to let go. Entrepreneurs need to hear that from each other: that it's okay to fail, it doesn't mean you're worthless. You're just like the rest of us, learning from our making mistakes and building something bigger next time.

Failure is still a taboo topic all over the world, but FailCon is working to change that one city at a time. Join the discussion at Asia's first FailCon!

The First FailCon

FailCon was started in 2009 by Cass Phillipps, an event planner for startup events and Diane Loviglio, founder of a cleantech startup. After attending numerous events for the technology industry, they began to realize things were starting to get repetitive. Events put successful entrepreneurs on stage to talk about how they made their company great, something that's near-impossible to replicate, and never about what they learned from mistakes along the way. They wanted to change the dialogue, to work with the community and, together, learn from each other about the path to success. The first event launched with over 400 attendees, and FailCon has continued to grow since then.

Who Are The Organizers?

Kristine Lauria, Executive Producer

Kristine is a community builder, digital media dynamo, and world explorer. She has seven years of experience building successful marketing campaigns and running communications for organizations like PBwiki.com and the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation. She’s a vocal member of the Singapore startup community, hosting Singapore’s first Walkabout and pushing out the weekly networking and events listing 'TheList.sg' to thousands of people each week.

Adrianna Tan

Adrianna Tan is a Singaporean entrepreneur who has set up several small companies. She has been involved in various events around Singapore in speaking and organizational capacities. She is passionate about the Singapore tech scene and is excited about helping to foster a collaborative environment not just in Singapore but also in Southeast and South Asia. She helps host SuperHappyDevHouse.sg, ladypy and other delicious, geeky things like that.

Justin Hall

Justin Hall is an American expat working and studying in Singapore. A Lee Kuan Yew School Graduate Scholarship recipient, he is keeping himself busy working for Golden Gate Ventures. He’s also working with the National Research Foundation, to improve their entrepreneurship initiatives. He loves the tech community in Singapore and is looking forward to helping it grow.

Jeffrey Paine

Jeffrey Paine is a founding partner of Golden Gate Ventures, a technology incubator based in Singapore with a portfolio across Asia. Jeff started and manages the Founder Institute in Asia where he is currently overseeing its expansion in the region. Since 2010 the Founder Institute has graduated over 40 companies in Asia.

Vinnie Lauria

Vinnie's first major public failure was a startup, Meetro.com. Like most entrepreneurs in the valley, he put his shoes back on to try again, this time with a forum hosting service, Lefora.com. Lefora grew to over 100,000 communities in less than 3 years before being acquired by CrowdGather. A recent transplant to Singapore, Vinnie was previously based in San Francisco where he has organized dozens of events since 2005, including the 8,000+ member Silicon Valley NewTech meetup [SVNewTech.com] which has featured hundreds of new web startups demoing or launching their new service. In Singapore, Vinnie has help to host SuperHappyDevHouse.sg and WalkAbout.sg. Vinnie is a founding partner of the early stage tech incubator focusing on Southeast Asia, Golden Gate Ventures.