My business failed, and here's how I feel (end)

Editor's note: As the saying goes, "Women's wardrobe is always one less clothes", Australian girl Nikki Durkin also have this feeling. But unlike other girls, she chose to solve the problem by starting a business. In 2011, 19-Year-old founder of the fashion exchange website 99dresses, so that millions of women always feel that there is no suitable clothes to wear a woman has an "unlimited wardrobe." For a time, the influx of users continued, the site also seems to be more and more popular. But in a male-dominated tech venture, competition is brutal, especially for a 19-year-old girl. Finally, her business, like 90% other startups, cannot escape the fate of failure. Most people often only see the scenery on the surface of entrepreneurship, but do not see the bitterness behind, but the failure of entrepreneurship, often stay in the rational analysis, a few perceptual perception. So she decided to tell her story and talk about her personal feelings about failure. The girl's article may be the best autobiographic article on entrepreneurship failure.

Close

With only a few weeks ' cash left, Marcin and I agreed to use the rest of our time gracefully to shut down the app for ourselves and for our users. I came to the office that day to have a difficult conversation with him, but we looked at each other and knew it was over. Tears in my eyes, but fortunately I have a long black hair cover my blood-red eyes. All day I felt sick and had no appetite for anything, and that was the other time of the week.

My first instinct is to apologize-apologize to Marcin, apologize to my team, apologize to my investors, apologize to the faithful community we built. I felt ashamed, guilty, and embarrassed-as if a duty was to secure the flock, but the shepherds led them down the cliff. I know I shouldn't feel this way rationally, but I can't accept it emotionally.

I don't really know how I feel. I've been busy with this company since I graduated from high school, 99dresses is all I know. It takes up a lot of my identity-I'm the 99dresses girl. What am I to do without this start-up? I do not know. Maybe it's just a normal girl, I guess.

My friend invited me to drown my head, but I didn't want to. I was afraid to meet strangers and ask me what I was doing when I didn't know how to answer. In addition, I would be embarrassed because I couldn't afford anything unnecessary-I don't know how to pay the rent until the end of the month. Being a woman at night in New York doesn't cost much, because there's always a cute guy who pays for your drinks. But I'm not a woman who wants that. I am very independent. If I can't buy my own, then I won't go out.

I'm not that frustrated. I tried so hard, but I couldn't do it. There are a lot of things I can do to make it work again, but Marcin and I agree not to fall into the trap of "could, should be, maybe." "Don't regret it," he said. We've learned some lessons from mistakes, but it also makes me realize how important luck and timing are to success and failure.

The next day a start-up report came out, and the company's business model was very similar to ours, but it was done in different vertical areas. We have 3 times times more transactions in the first 8 months of app online than each other, 2.5 times times more members than each other, and the business model has been formed-and the team is only half the size. Now they have started a considerable round of financing, and we have failed. Our investors say we do a lot of things with the money we have.

If you try and try and try but you still have no success, it will be easier to accept failure. You can call it a failed experiment. It's easy to justify failure.

You keep trying, and it's frustrating when you end up getting a little more popular and falling into a cliff. Of course, we still have problems with our business, but which startups don't?

Move on.

The story says here is ready to end. My friends all ask me how, to be honest, I feel fine. I ended a crazy trip, but it's time to move on.

One of the cruel endings of my failure was that the American visa I had worked so hard to get was gone. Once I'm not the CEO of 99dresses, technically I only have 10 days to sell my possessions, say good-bye to my excellent team, my friends, and the life I have opened here, and then roll up my blanket and leave.

That said, I am still excited to open a new chapter. Like my passion for startups, I enjoy this release and now I don't have to be responsible for anyone but myself-no team and clients need to be cared for. Maybe now I can be a normal 22-year-old for a while-indulge my travel addiction, make some bad decisions, and try something new.

I would go back to my parents and go back to the 2000-Man village town where the internet was slow and there was no seamless (lingerie brand), but I would live there for a while to replenish myself. I wish I could come alive. To tell you the truth, I may start to get bored in a week, and then start implementing new ideas. Really, I already have a few ideas.

When I do 99dresses, I plan to be big or go home. It was a great adventure, but now I have to go home.

End

That's it. This is my story, my feelings of failure. Writing this article is just a vent for me, but I hope it will help you when you finish reading it.

Most start-ups have failed, but the industry's discussion of failure is far from enough. I want people who have failed to write about how they feel, because you don't know how much it will help me in the final period. I just want to find someone who feels the same. But instead, I feel isolated and ashamed.

In fact, I think compiling the story of a failed founder is a book for emotional healing. This may be a small project for me to spend some time on, and I'm sure it will be helpful to people in my current situation.

If you want to participate in contributing your story, please nikki @ 99dresses.com (yes, I have to prepare a new mailbox, but I have not yet cleared it all.) ）

PostScript

June 24, Nikki posted a post on Facebook saying 99dresses is starting to close:

Yesterday I formally announced the closure of the 99dresses. Failure is lonely, no one wanted to say this before, so I wrote an article of experience. If this article can help even one person, let him/her not feel so isolated and ashamed, the purpose of the article is achieved.

24 hours later, this article has browsed more than 130,000 times. I received endless support-hundreds of Facebook messages and emails from friends and strangers, thousands of tweets, lots of text messages and phones, and a job offer I didn't know how to handle.

I've started reading some of the emails and I can't stop crying as I read them. In these stories, some people fail after the founders commit suicide and some are bankrupt. The founders were so brave. I am honored that my article can resonate with so many people and give them the courage to confide in a stranger like me.

I just want to say thank you for your support and encouragement. As I said in my article, Failure TM sucks. That said, I'm excited to take a break and move on to the next adventure.