Due to difficult economics and an aging population that needs social services, Finland is finding itself desperate for workers, but jobs cannot simply be created by giant corporations anymore and the only way to sustain the welfare state seems to be through new ventures and entrepreneurship.  Except government restrictions and regulations that discourage giant corporations hurt small businesses most, and Finns are conservative when it comes to risk anyway.

Finns are by culture very risk averse and the biggest reason for not setting up a company is the fear of failure, surveys say. So young entrepreneurs of Finland, led by Aalto Entrepreneurship Society and Boardman Tulenkantajat group, arranged National Failure Day to change Finnish culture to be more accepting of failures as part of the natural process of creating new successes. 

 "Finland needs a new kind of entrepreneurial mind set and a culture of failure. Our mission with this campaign is to arouse conversation around failing and its importance to creating success stories," says Petri Vilen, the leader of Boardman Tulenkantajat group. 

The supporters behind the campaign include the Chairman of Nokia and Shell Jorma Ollila, Minister of Economic Affairs Jyri Hakamies, the man behind the success of Angry Birds, Rovio's Peter Vesterbacka among the support from great variety of Finnish student associations and Finnish Innovation Fund.

 Before Angry Birds, Rovio was near bankruptcy, having released over 50 games that weren't successful. "The most important thing is to keep trying. Sometimes you get it right and sometimes don't. Our basic attitude at Rovio is that we're good in learning," says Peter Vesterbacka in the video at the campaign site. 

 On Thursday, October 13th, every major university city had their own events bringing entrepreneurs and pop icons telling about their failures. "We are actually amazed how the Finns have really taken the day by heart. We have heard about people organising conferences, round tables and events at large companies, all of which discussing the topic of failure. This really makes us as organizers smile," says Petri Vilen. 

 The National Failure Day campaign got a lot of attention in the Finnish mainstream media and all of the largest web, TV, radio and print media gave it coverage.  The videos of the supporters can be found on the campaign site.