Smart minds collect them.
Those who hide failure pay twice. Those who use it win. The Failure Institute brings failure culture where it belongs: into the DNA of successful organisations.
Sample calculation by the Wolf I.O. Group, 2020, normalised to 1,000 employees. Only cost items with a direct bearing on failure culture are included. Staff turnover costs are deliberately excluded and considered separately.
More than events and workshops: we are the movement for real cultural change inside organisations. With us, failure is not a weakness — it is the foundation for uncompromising learning. The Failure Institute makes organisations more open, more resilient and measurably more innovative.
Our clear aim: we create spaces in which failure is no longer a taboo. Places where teams breathe out, reflect with courage and grow together. So that failure culture does not remain a buzzword, but becomes lived reality.
From the emotional impulse to measurable cultural change. Three formats that fit into one another — bookable on their own, most effective together.
FIND OUT MORE →For organisers who want an hour in the programme that is still being mentioned three years later. A single talk or the full Fuckup Nights format — with real stories and real effect.
FIND OUT MORE →Here we show you anonymised insights into real client projects — from the analysis through to strategic cultural change. See what we do and what effect it has.
FIND OUT MORE →Trusted by leading companies and organisations
Since 2014 · more than 80 events · over 27,000 guests
Mag. iur. Dejan Stojanovic founded the Failure Institute in 2014. As a lecturer at TU Wien, a TEDx speaker and a keynote speaker, he brings failure culture into organisations — with energy, openness and genuine conviction.
“Dejan reached our people with incredible energy and openness about failure. The Fuckup Night was not just an event — it was a genuine moment of culture.”HR Director · international pharmaceutical company
We support organisations along the full path towards a mature competence in dealing with failure. Our work rests on three strategic pillars:
A culture of learning and courage (organisational development): Tailored consulting, workshops and data-based failure culture surveys that anchor psychological safety and a lasting learning culture deep within your teams.
Stage programmes: Compelling keynotes by Dejan Stojanovic, along with exclusive in-house Private Fuckup Nights that serve as an emotional icebreaker.
Speaker coaching: Professional preparation for leaders and employees, so they can bring their own stories of failure to the stage in a way that is sharp, constructive and genuinely changes the culture.
The public Fuckup Nights are global, open events for the business and startup world. A Private Fuckup Night by the Failure Institute, by contrast, is an internal format held exclusively for your organisation. Under complete confidentiality, we bring your own leaders and employees onto the stage. This breaks down silo thinking, strengthens psychological safety in the workplace and turns failure into real potential for innovation.
No. Neither the Failure Institute nor the Fuckup Nights operate as a franchise or licensing model in which standardised content or white-label concepts are replicated by changing third parties. Every format, every keynote and every speaker coaching is designed and delivered for you directly by founder Dejan Stojanovic and his core team of experts, as bespoke organisational development. What you book is not an anonymous licence, but owner-led expertise and more than a decade of pioneering work on failure culture.
Our clients range from DAX- and ATX-listed corporations (in sectors such as pharmaceuticals, technology, automotive and finance) through to agile mid-sized market leaders and startups. Wherever there is pressure to innovate, a transformation under way or a new leadership culture to establish, our formats have their full effect. Team size is secondary — what matters is the willingness to treat innovation through failure as a genuine business advantage.
A stage programme or a Private Fuckup Night is the emotional catalyst that breaks the taboo. To make that shift measurable and to embed it in day-to-day work, we treat the development of a learning culture as a process. We combine the events strategically with our preceding culture analyses and subsequent deep-dive workshops. An inspiring impulse thereby becomes a data-based, durable culture strategy that reduces staff turnover and increases the pace of innovation.
Confidentiality is the absolute foundation of our work. Before every project we agree strict compliance rules (“What happens in the room, stays in the room”). Through our specialised speaker coaching, we prepare your employees and leaders so thoroughly that their stories deliver the greatest possible learning for the group, without ever putting sensitive company or client data at risk.
Tell us briefly about your organisation and what you want to achieve — we will come back with a fitting proposal, including an initial Failure Audit.
The public Fuckup Nights are the spark — here we turn it into measurable cultural change. Two rooms, one house.
To the Fuckup Nights ↗