The wreck
The screw-up. What actually happened, without polish. Candid, never confessional for spectacle.
A Business Network Media experience
Reck ’N Rise is a night where business owners take the mic and tell the truth about a screw-up: what happened, what they learned, and how they rose. Then the room networks.
It starts in Vancouver. The format, the five-minute rule and the weekly Board Meeting stay the same everywhere, so any city can run Reck ’N Rise [City] under licence. Start a city →
What this is
Reck ’N Rise is a networking night built on real business failure stories. Same architecture as Fuckup Nights, without the cussing in the name.
Speakers get five minutes to tell the screw-up, what they learned, and how they rose, if they have. Then the room does what rooms do: people meet, swap notes, and leave with names worth calling.
The story arc
The screw-up. What actually happened, without polish. Candid, never confessional for spectacle.
The part the room takes home. The lesson that would have saved them a year, or a business.
How they got out of it, dealt with it, grew past it. Some stories don’t have this part yet. They still belong on stage.
How the night runs
Open networking over a pint or a coffee. Grows the list and brings in referrals, sponsors, speakers and attendees.
Peel into the main event at the same venue. Open mic, 5–6 speakers, 5 minutes each. Full house is 40–60 people.
No Reck that week? Board still meets. Vancouver only: in a month with a Fuckup Nights event, Reck sits out and returns the next month.
Next event
Two test runs are done. November 24 is the first Reck ’N Rise with the logo and the full rollout.
Who it’s for
You’ve signed the lease, made payroll, and made at least one call you’d take back.
You run the thing day to day and know where the bodies are buried.
Every mistake lands on one desk. Yours.
Agencies, consultants, trades. You’ve learned from clients the hard way.
You’ve backed winners and the other kind. You know which taught you more.
Explore
Events
Board meets weekly and it’s free. Reck runs monthly at $10. Your city comes first.
Prototype: city is picked from this menu. Production detects the visitor’s city from their IP address, then sorts nearby cities by distance.
Tickets for every city are sold through the HQ main site, not on this page.
The main event
Monthly. Open mic. Real stories about real screw-ups, strictly timed, followed by the kind of networking that starts with something true.
The 5-minute rule
Every speaker gets the same clock. When it hits zero, the room claps you off stage. Try it.
Story rules
Who runs the night
Handles the room. High energy, good vibes, strong crowd control. Gracious and friendly, stern enough to ward off the rough ones.
Venue, run of show, sound check, and volunteers for registration, timing and clapping people off.
Event setup, ticket sales, social, local emails and posters. All organic: grassroots first, then structured referrals.
Professionals with large-ish networks who fill the room.
Curates speakers, from applications and from the floor.
A bar or restaurant on a slow night. 50+ capacity, AV and mic preferred, central with parking preferred.
For venues
Free marketing and foot traffic you wouldn’t have had otherwise. We ask for drink or meal specials and a small donation to a local charity.
Tickets stay at $10. Licensees may adjust price if food or drink is included. Discount codes are possible.
Weekly · Free
It sounds important. It is. It’s also business owners shaking hands over a pint or a coffee.
Free, separate from the Reck ticket. Owners, operators and employees all welcome to grow their connections.
If you’re on time, the organizer may run a quick round of introductions.
That’s the business. Open networking, nothing more formal.
On Reck nights, peel into Reck at 6 PM at the same venue. Board members who stay for both get a discounted Reck ticket (best practice).
No Reck this week? Board still meets.
It’s the feeder. The Board grows the list and brings in referrals, sponsors, speakers and the people who fill Reck.
A good Board meeting is as full as a Reck, with people walking out saying they met a lot of great people. Every licensed city must run one.
Apply to speak
Half the slots come from applications. Half are picked from the room on the night. Our JV person curates both.
What happened. Specific beats vague.
What you learned that someone else can use.
How you got out of it, or how you’re still working on it.
No pitching, no politics, no libel. Five minutes, strictly timed. Speaker perks: to be confirmed.
Application
Licensing
Bring the format home. You get the playbook to run and monetize the events, plus use of the logo, the site and the system.
To start
Have at least half your team on board, with a plan to fill the rest. You must run a weekly Board Meeting; it’s the engine the licence is built on.
Licensees need their own way to receive sponsor funds, or HQ can process them as merchant. Applying doesn’t guarantee approval or territory exclusivity.
Apply
About
Every business has a wreck in it. Most people hide theirs. We built a room where you tell it, work out what it taught you, and walk out with people who’ll help with what comes next.
The family
Monthly open-mic failure stories plus the weekly Board Meeting. Licensed city by city.
Speakers telling real failure stories on stage, emceed by Martin Presse. Reck carries that community forward.
Real mistakes lower the mask.
Every story yields a usable lesson.
The room turns insight into relationships.
The format and city playbook make it scale.
Newsletter
One global newsletter for the whole network, plus a local one for your city.
Board and Reck dates for your city.
What people learned the hard way.
Connections from across the network.
Company-wide news and your city’s own list.
Contact
Send it to head office, or to a local office if your city has one.
Local offices appear in “Send to” only once a city’s licence is taken. With no local office chosen, messages go to head office.