Before

1. Market your first Fail Friday a little more that usual.

Since the value in this is a little less obvious — as compared to say, a tutorial, or expert speaker — make sure to market your first event a little more. Direct message a few of your most active members to get the RSVP list started.

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2. Source the UBER fail story that you’d like to kick-off with.

We recommend starting each “Fail Friday” with a major mistake/failure from someone in the community to set the tone of the call & create a space where vulnerability is celebrated. You can lead the first one, or reach out to one of your more active members & help them prepare to kick-off the first call for you. It helps to hear from someone more successful in the community first to normalize failure for others.

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During

1. Kick-off the event.

Thank everyone for being there. Play some lo-fi music in the beginning (you can “screenshare” audio in zoom) as people trickle in to set the tone for the call.

Bonus: Highlight some great activity in the community! You can create a quick slide deck with screenshots from the community thanking specific members for being helpful and solving problems for others.

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2. Don’t record. Explain why.

You shouldn’t record this event to ensure that everyone feels comfortable being completely vulnerable. Recording jeopardizes the spirit of the call by making everyone overly conscious about how they come across.

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3. Introduce the kick-off speaker.

Hype them up a TON! You want them to be be able to deliver their best to your community members — use your position as the leader of the community to give them more confidence as you kick off!

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4. Feed the flame.

Give people chance to expand on their story, share details, & have fun. Some great phrases that do this:

• “Wait! Tell us more about that!”
• “How did you feel during X?”

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5. Model a culture of support.

As the person is speaking, use different ways to offer them support! Some great things that help here include:

• Zoom chat to drop nice notes
• Emojis in Zoom
• Have everyone unmute if possible to hear the collective groans, sighs, & laughs

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6. Give room for others to share

Use zoom chat or “raise hand” in zoom to queue up the next set of folks. Anyone who wants to share & celebrate a failure from the past month can come up and speak.

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7. In the last 10 minutes, solidify the learnings in chat.

“Can everyone drop one this in the chat that they learned or found insightful during this call?”

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8. Encourage people to apply to kick-off the next Fail Friday.

Paste the link to the application for into the chat so people can apply then & there.

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9. Bonus: Take a group picture!

This is a fun ritual & gives you an image you can share into the community after the call, to excite people for the next one. For Heartbeat events, we have all our members make a heart with their hands & then screenshot the zoom room 💖

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After

1. Post a recap thread.

This is for everyone that missed the event. Include 3-4 highlights from the call, shoutout particularly vulnerable members using @mentions, and link to the next Fail Fridays call using the “$” notion, and link to the Fail Fridays kick-off form. Include a group pic from the call if you took one! This will create a little more FOMO to motivate people to join the next call!

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