No fuckup, no scale-up: real stories from circular founders during Fuckup Nights

Last week, Circular Factory and Groene Chemie, Nieuwe Economie (GCNE) hosted a packed house—entrepreneurs, investors, and policymakers alike—for an afternoon dedicated to the stories we rarely hear. Four speakers from our circular ecosystem recounted their toughest moments in scaling First-of-a-Kind (FOAK) factories, sharing challenges from miscommunication over plant designs to energy costs and financing structures that couldn’t hold.