{"id":35467,"date":"2023-10-20T14:38:46","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:38:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/nikki-durkin-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:38:46","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:38:46","slug":"nikki-durkin-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/nikki-durkin-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Nikki Durkin &#8211; StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"90\" height=\"110\" itemprop=\"image\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/nikki-durkin.jpg\" alt=\"Nikki Durkin\" title=\"Nikki Durkin\"\/><\/div>\n<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-17751\" style=\"margin: 5px; float: right;\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/nikki-durkin.jpg\" alt=\"Nikki Durkin\" width=\"90\" height=\"110\" \/>Name:<\/strong> Nikki Durkin <\/p>\n<p><strong>Business name:<\/strong> <a target=\"_blank\" title=\"99dresses\" href=\"http:\/\/99dresses.com\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">99dresses<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Age:<\/strong> 20<\/p>\n<p><strong>State:<\/strong> NSW<\/p>\n<p>  <span id=\"more-4286\"><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Nikki Durkin was 18 when she founded 99dresses, a site where users upload their unwanted clothes to sell for a virtual currency, which they can then spend on other users\u2019 unwanted items.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>99dresses is Durkin\u2019s third business. She started her first business, KultKandy, at the age of 15, selling T-shirts that she would design before having them printed and drop shipped from China.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Durkin sold the T-shirts through eBay and grew the business to be a highly profitable little venture, turning over $1,200 a week.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>99dresses is a site where users upload their unwanted clothes to sell for a virtual currency called buttons, which they can then spend on other users\u2019 unwanted clothes, says her biggest overseas competition comes from eBay.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>After finishing high school, Durkin approached tech seed fund Pollenizer, which was instantly taken with her idea of liberating women\u2019s wardrobes of items never worn.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Durkin worked with incubator Pollenizer to create a Facebook page that was shared with more than 40,000 women, using the fan base to attract her first users.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>99dresses opened for trading in 2010 and has been growing ever since. Durkin continues to work on 99dresses, taking care of product development, community management and marketing.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>She attributes her success to Pollenizer co-founder Mick Liubinskas, who acted as her mentor, but is also well aware of her own abilities.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m mature for my age and I hang out with a lot of older people and I fit in, but you just need to prove yourself through your actions,\u201d Durkin says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve never had a problem being taken seriously, especially in the tech field where there are a lot of young people. You just need to do it \u2013 start something and learn from it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Name: Nikki Durkin Business name: 99dresses Age: 20 State: NSW \u00a0 Nikki Durkin was 18 when she founded 99dresses, a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35467"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}