Distilling Venture Capital

What were you doing when you were 18? Nikki Durkin was finding co-founders, doing the Y-Combinator thing, raising venture capital, dealing with reporters, replacing co-founders, raising more venture capital and otherwise trying to grow her start-up. Listen in to find out what she learned when it all collapsed. My Guest Nikki Durkin hails from Sydney, Australia.  At the ripe old age of 18 she launched 99Dresses, an online exchange for used fashion. After starting in Sydney, she moved to Silicon Valley to participate in Y Combinator.  While 99Dresses got its fair share of press, Nikki attracted more press than most entrepreneurs both because of her age and her gender.  When 99Dresses ultimately failed, Nikki took the courageous step of posting two long articles on Medium.com, one about being a woman in the tech industry and the other about the emotions of failing.  She discusses both with me on this episode of the podcast. The Take Home Lessons Unlike a lot of my conversations, Nikki and I spent less time on th