BACK TO ARTICLES 
There are lots of reasons Nikki Durkin should be your #wcw, not the least of which is the fact that she once split-tested flats and heels to evaluate investors' responses to each (heels won, by the way). Her poignant, personal, well-written story of startup failure has been making its way around the interwebs today and found itself in my Twitter feed this morning. My cup of coffee might as well have been a bag of popcorn as I scrolled intensely through the emotional tale of how 99dresses came to be, and came not to be.
I was blown away by the rawness, the depth, and the sincerity with which she told us how it all went down. Having never done a #wcw before, I knew after reading her story that this was the occasion to start. So, why should Nikki Durkin be your #wcw today? Here's why.
She took care of her people.
When a startup begins to fail, and passes the point of no return, many founders take the route similar to that of a trapped animal upon realizing its dire situation. They begin to gnaw off extremities, convincing themselves they can survive without that leg or this arm, bleeding out in the process. They exhaust all resources until they run aground, leaving their team members to fend for themselves in the end. Nikki Durkin resisted this course and bowed out gracefully. She took care of her team and community of users. If startups had funerals, the ceremony for 99dresses would have been akin to a viking sendoff, drifting ablaze into the horizon with dignity and honor.
She showed us what you can do without a college degree.
In the years between her high school graduation and her 22nd birthday, Nikki Durkin founded a company, won $10K, then used it to go raise $600K in Series A funding, moved across the world to NYC, ran a her own tech startup, created a thriving user community, hired people, fired people, and the list goes on. That’s a lot when compared to those same years in the lives of her peers, typically reserved for attending classes, sleeping in, hanging out, and getting a degree.
She shared her failure so that others could benefit.
As a startup owner, I know that temptation to gloss over failure like it was all part of the plan. Saving face, it’s what we do. Entrepreneurs are great at making the best of a bad situation! Nikki could have done that. She didn’t though, and the startup world is a better place for it. Failure is one of the most isolating things about being an entrepreneur. Your employed friends don’t understand it and your startup peers can't risk admitting that they understand it too! It’s lonely and it’s hard. Sometimes, it just helps to know you're not the only one. It helped me this morning.
I hope entrepreneurs will continue sharing their experiences the way that Nikki did. If you haven't read it yet, go check out her story on Medium and share it with your startup friends.
Click here if you want to tweet this and proclaim your #wcw to the world.
