Business Series: Failing Forward - Lessons from Start-up Setbacks

Join us for Failing Forward: Lessons from Start-up Setbacks, a unique panel event where experienced entrepreneurs share their candid stories of failure and how they ultimately used those challenges to succeed. Through detailed accounts of their ventures gone wrong, the panellists will explore the emotional and practical hurdles they faced when dealing with failure, and how they turned those setbacks into valuable lessons.

Topics will include:

• Why their ventures failed and what went wrong

• How they navigated the emotional toll of failure

• The steps they took to reflect on and learn from their mistakes

• Strategies they used to bounce back and apply those lessons to future ventures

• How failure shaped their approach to risk-taking and entrepreneurship

Chair

Dr Martin Gannon, Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship, University of Edinburgh Business School

Panellists

Belinda Roberts MBE is an award-winning entrepreneur & founder of WeDO Scotland, a leading peer-to-peer learning and support organisation supporting and championing established, high growth entrepreneurs. Having previously exited a company she founded within 3.5 years of inception, and overcome her fair share of challenges on her entrepreneurial journey, her passions are business and people. She was awarded an MBE for services to business and entrepreneurship in 2019.

Onyinye Igbokwe is an entrepreneur and ecosystem builder with over a decade of experience in engineering, tech and startups. She has founded multiple ventures, including Fotopool and Spyce Social, and successfully exited Poshmunda, an Interior Architecture Company that she built while living in Nigeria, giving her deep insight into what it takes to build and grow a business. Not every venture succeeded, her experience building Ujali, which did not work out, was a pivotal moment that taught her hard but invaluable lessons about resilience, adaptability, and the realities of entrepreneurship. Today, Onyinye brings this lived entrepreneurial experience into her role leading strategic partnerships at Codebase for Scotland’s Techscaler programme, as well as in her role as Programme Director at Knowvate Hub, a global community for Ethnic minority founders. She is passionate about empowering underrepresented founders, building inclusive startup communities, and helping others navigate both the opportunities and the setbacks that come with entrepreneurship. With a track record in stakeholder engagement and programme design, she works to transform ecosystems so that founders have the support they need to thrive.

Karis Gill is a multi-award-winning social entrepreneur, speaker, and storytelling coach. She co-founded Social Stories Club, a social enterprise gifting company that has introduced over one million people to social enterprise through corporate gifts and partnerships with leading global organisations. With more than seven years’ experience building a business from scratch, Karis has mastered the art of storytelling as a tool for influence, connection, and growth. She has delivered over 100 keynotes and workshops to accelerators, corporates, and universities, teaching teams and leaders how to craft powerful stories that drive sales, win investment, and create lasting impact.

Danae Shell is CEO and founder of Valla Ltd, a DIY legal technology platform that helps millions of UK consumers identify, evaluate and take action on employment legal issues. She's a seasoned tech leader who grew up in the Appalachian mountains and taught herself to code on a garage-sale Apple II. She was an early employee in both FreeAgent and Barrie & Hibbert who both exited at £50m+ and has raised over £3m from VC and angel investors, most recently a £2m seed round led by Ada Ventures.