Accepting failure: Europe’s overlooked competitiveness advantage

Have you ever attended a climbing class? If so, you know that the first thing you are taught is how to fall. The logic is simple. If you are not afraid of falling, you are more likely to keep climbing.

The same applies to entrepreneurship. Have you ever re-arranged a cap table before a Series A? If so, you will know that if the percentages were not right in earlier rounds, founders may later need to buy people out or dilute more than expected. Even when a round is successfully closed, earlier mistakes often resurface, becoming costly lessons rooted in inexperience.

What often stops us from continuing is the fear of falling. For founders, what prevents them from closing a Series A when a cap table was poorly structured is often the fear of losing control over their company, whether through higher-than-expected dilution or the need to buy out early supporters sooner than anticipated. At its core, it is resistance to change. We do not want to dismantle something that already exists, even if it is flawed.

A few months ago, part of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded to recognise, through formal economic modelling, that the concept of “creative destruction”, first introduced by economist Joseph Schumpeter in the early 1940s, is not just theoretical, but observable in practice.

“Creative destruction” implies that innovation creates new methods or products while rendering old ones obsolete, requiring continuous experimentation and adaptation. Along those lines, it demonstrates that destruction is not necessarily negative, but fundamental for growth. Planning, trying, failing, getting up and trying again are what eventually lead to celebrated growth.

These are some of the basic principles of entrepreneurial culture, an asset that Europe has been promoting to leverage its potential for the decades to come, through the recent EU Startup and Scaleup Strategy and the upcoming European Innovation Act.

One may think the opposite. Europe does not have an entrepreneurial culture. And yes, it is our missing piece.

But the real question is, why?

When did the fear begin to settle? After 1945, 1948, 1991? While the twentieth century brought us comfort, it surely did not erase centuries of innovation and creativity paired with adventurous spirits. Are we struggling to find the balance between our standards of living and the wish for more?

Maybe it is because Europe never really teaches you how to fall.

A friend of mine, who is an Executive Director of a well-known European NGO, once told me, “If you fall in Europe, you fall soft.”

And the more time passes, the more this becomes a reality. Our systems, social protection, benefits, and safety nets are built to keep us stable, not to let us stumble. We are designed to enter the workforce safely, not to take irrational leaps into the unknown.

And when someone decides to build something new, they expect, more than anywhere else, that the government will be there to help.

That supportive mindset, while valuable, is often the opposite of what drives entrepreneurial transformation. It might even be the opposite of the concept of creative destruction. Because to create, you must be ready to lose control first, to change jobs, leave a comfortable bubble, and start something without knowing how it will end.

That is where one of Europe’s greatest opportunities lies today. To cultivate a new way of thinking, one that embraces what we do not know, builds new industries we cannot yet define, and invests in people before they have proven themselves.

That is risk. That is entrepreneurship. It is backing a founder you have never met, funding a startup whose success is uncertain, believing in a future that has not yet taken shape.

Is it too much to ask?

For much of the world, no. Uncertainty is a way of living.
For Europe, it still is.

In our recently launched volume on Talent and Entrepreneurial Culture, we reflected on different areas that converge with the concept of entrepreneurial culture, which usually relates to a mindset that values experimentation and is open to destroying or changing something for a greater outcome. It is important to note that this is not limited to startups, but reflects how societies approach risk, manage uncertainty, and navigate scenarios that are difficult to play out.

Is this one of Europe’s main assets? Probably not. We have been better at analysing and building diagnoses, but not at moving fast and managing risk.

But can this change?

Absolutely, but to do so, we need to fail more, not less. Because failure is how we learn, and learning by failing is how we eventually win. Excellence in theory must finally meet courage in practice.

Some initiatives are already in place, including Innofounder, which offers a full-time course for entrepreneurs in Denmark or the Startup Officers Network in the Netherlands. Across the continent, you can feel a quiet shift – a new pace for founders, policymakers, and doers trying to do things differently.

Europe may not yet match the U.S. or China when scaling tech, but it has something else – resilience, diversity, and the power of policy to drive a cultural shift.

If cultivated intentionally, entrepreneurial culture could become Europe’s next strategic asset. Not just a value we talk about, but a new foundation for competitiveness –
less about capital gaps, and more about mindset.

Because in the end, it’s not only about startups or scaleups, it is all about daring to fall, and choosing to stand up – together, again and again, until this becomes a habit.

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