Media: Dave Hayward speaking at Revved. Write-Offs

Get a room full of the smartest, most ambitious, most fun people in the business. Then ask them to talk about the worst calls of their careers.

That was the brief for the inaugural Revved. Write-Offs last Wednesday night. Around 60-odd people came. The impact is much greater, because I think Revved. really touched on something really important with this event series. 

A different kind of event that hit different

We’re hopeless at talking about business failure in this country. Everyone runs the highlight reel. The lumpy stuff stays in a drawer. So Rochelle Moffitt, James Boult and I stood up in front of a full room and did it properly.

Rochelle Moffitt, leader of Revved. events and an incredible speaker

Rochelle is a “f*ck yes” person. She backs herself into situations and decisions that raise eyebrows, then goes anyway. It’s her superpower. It’s also what has landed her in the most trouble. She walked us through her timeline of adventures and how she now decides which write-offs are worth a “f*ck yes” and which are a hard “f*ck no”.

The brilliant James Boult spoke with courage, intellect, and honesty

James built his name on strategic and creative idea generation. The same instinct that made his reputation is the one that came unstuck. He talked about the thing that broke him, how much longer the healing took than he expected, and how he now makes a living from the very thing that floored him.

It’s never hard to get me presenting when slides are involved.

For me, I’ve got my imposter syndrome set at 11, which means everything looks equally doable, and I keep leaping off the deep end. It has given me a wide and useful range of experience. It has also seen me come a cropper, spectacularly. One of those write-offs is, eventually, where Europa came from.

Here’s what didn’t happen. Nobody said they couldn’t relate.

That’s the whole point of the room. To learn from the losses that didn’t cost you. To swap the polished version for what the work actually looks like.

I left a little lighter, with a touch more perspective and a strong connection to some ace people. It’s not often you’d call a business event soulful. But here we are.

Photos by the brilliant Sam Ringdahl.

Revved Write-Offs goes on tour after the Revved Summit 2026, and applications to share your own write-off are open. I also recorded a Slideshow episode off the back of the night, which you can listen to here.