Discover why the founder of this global movement became an e-resident and what the two programs have in common
Pepe Villatoro is a bright-eyed Mexican who grew up in the country's deep south. He was raised in a culture where hard work and success were revered and failure of any kind was looked down upon. Educated as a physicist, Villatoro caught the entrepreneurial bug early and started several companies, some of which failed spectacularly and left him penniless.
Rather than dwell on what could have been, he hit upon an interesting recipe for success. Villatoro started a global movement called Fuckup Nights that organizes more than 1,000 events and seminars a year all over the world where people learn how to fail and learn from their experiences. In this way, he has managed to turn failure into a personal triumph.
Eager to bring Fuckup Nights to more people, Villatoro recently became an Estonian e-resident. He sees in Estonia many kindred spirits and an ecosystem that has fostered the most unicorns per capita in Europe. The country's startup culture aligns well with the Fuckup Nights mindset too, that it's necessary to take risks, fail fast, learn faster, and innovate ever more along the way.
"As I learn more about it, my conclusion has been that e-Residency is a portal to the world, a way to democratize entrepreneurship," Villatoro said in a recent interview.
"I come from the poorest state in Mexico. My dad grew up with no electricity. To be able to open my computer anywhere in the world and access European and global markets is just life-changing," he said.
Villatoro has dark, curly hair and a dark beard that’s slowly being colonised by grey. He has been active as an entrepreneur for two decades yet retains a boyish curiosity, both philosophical and adventurous. He has worked in Europe, Asia, and the Americas and enjoys life on the road.
Through Scientika, his business partner and the organisation that introduced him to Estonia, Villatoro embarked on a collaboration with Enterprise Estonia that has now grown into a strategic alliance. This joint effort seeks to democratise entrepreneurship across Ibero-America, beginning with a busy autumn programme: Fuckup Nights events in Valencia and Mexico City in October, followed by Monterrey, Mexico; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Santiago de Chile in November.
Looking ahead, the alliance will continue to expand opportunities for global entrepreneurship initiatives across the region, building bridges for future projects and collaborations through Enterprise Estonia.
For Villatoro, these activities align with Fuckup Nights' growth strategy. That means hiring new people to organize events, workshops, and seminars, as well as expanding its reach. It's here where his company's interest in Estonia also comes into play. "We're exploring partnerships with e-Residency that are exciting," he said.
Fuckup Nights is headquartered in Mexico City, but its European headquarters has been in Spain. But Villatoro is interested in exploring setting up a base in Tallinn for further operations.
The reason is that it would be easier for the company to manage affairs using Estonia's ecosystem of digital services, which are available around the clock from wherever someone happens to be located, so long as they have internet access. That accessibility paired with services that are streamlined to avoid any bureaucratic impediments make running a business based in Estonia efficient and cost-effective.
"To be honest and transparent, I've been impressed by the country in general, with how everything works here," Villatoro said. "It is clean, it is organized, it is productive."
The story behind Fuckup Nights dates back long before the company of that name was formed, nor the global movement that necessitated the need for a company. Villatoro was raised in Chiapas, the poorest state of Mexico. It was a society where one's worth was tied to their wealth, and where those who did not flourish were seen as losers. "These attitudes are common all over the world," Villatoro pointed out. "There is this kind of win-lose mentality," one that he notes can be a barrier to personal and entrepreneurial success.
Villatoro naturally worked to make something of himself, studying physics and nuclear energy at Mexico's Technological Institute of Monterrey. But after college, he quickly got wrapped up in the entrepreneurial life. He founded an ecotourism social enterprise called South Hope in Mexico, before moving across the ocean to Spain, where he served as a GIS consultant for an IT firm.
In 2009, he founded a company called Revolución con Letras, which he envisioned as a network for crowdsourcing content. It even had its own magazine. But the project went nowhere, and Villatoro lost all his money in the process. He kept this major loss secret and to himself.
The startup world is full of success stories, he said, about companies that succeed against all odds. People pass themselves off as being more successful than they really are. And nobody talks about how their companies failed, even if it was a necessary stepping stone toward success.
But one night in Mexico City, over some mezcal, Villatoro sat around with friends swapping tales of failure. They had such a good time revisiting their worst moments in life, work, and business, that they decided to create an event, which they dubbed Fuckup Nights.
Within a few months, such events were being held in 30 cities in several countries. Today, there are more than 250 Fuckup Nights teams across 70 countries that operate worldwide.
Fuckup Nights was founded in 2012, but in Villatoro's telling, it was run more like an NGO for the first half of its existence. That being said, it has managed to grow and develop.
Events have been held in more than 110 countries and have shared at least 23,000 stories of failure and renewal. More than a million people have attended public Fuckup Nights events, and there are also more than 700 business clients that have held private events. Fuckup Nights also runs workshops and has a global following through its media and newsletter, known for a warm, growth-oriented mindset.
Villatoro describes the endeavor as a "Trojan horse" that is invited into organisations and companies to turn them around from the inside out. The goal has always been to "free people from the stigma of failure so they can live life to the fullest." But the data the company has gathered is exceptional.
Through all of its workshops, seminars, and events, Villatoro has come to understand the psychology of failure, why people are too afraid to become entrepreneurs, why some people quit too soon, why others won't quit even when all the writing is on the wall.
Villatoro has not had to knock very hard to get invited in. "There are many change makers in corporations all over the world saying, 'I want to talk to you guys,'" he says. Fuckup Nights helps its corporate partners this by designing internal events that help their employees share stories of failure. These turn into opportunities, innovative ideas, and a more resilient company culture.
"We help them to break free, gain new perspectives, a new identity," says Villatoro.
Estonia is, as mentioned, very much in the picture. Estonia can offer entrepreneurs who take part in the Fuckup Nights movement access to a sandbox ecosystem, a launching pad for testing out new ideas, with low risk, and low bureaucratic burden.
During his first pilgrimage to his adopted digital homeland, Villatoro was impressed by the use cases and benefits of e-Residency while surprised that it is not yet widely used by entrepreneurs the world over. Just the process of applying for and getting his e-Residency card was something of a revelation.
"As a Mexican who has worked in Italy and Spain, I understand bureaucracy," he said. When he went to pick up his e-Residency card after applying, he expected some more formalities, a waiting room, perhaps some signatures here and there. He planned his schedule accordingly. As it turned out, he was left with lots of time on his hands.
"I was done in five minutes," he recalled. "I thought, what else is there? What else should I submit? I went in with my passport, expecting a process, but there was almost no process," he said.
After he provided his fingerprints, he was good to go.
"They just gave me the card and that was it”, he said.
As such, he was left with a favorable impression of the Northern European country, one he expects to grow his strategic alliance with, which he puts down to cohesive national goals and a desire to keep striving no matter the obstacles. "I love small countries that punch above their weight," he said.