Entrepreneur Kylie Wallace is one of five finalists in the upcoming Kickstarter Challenge grand final, where the winner will take home $30,000 in equity-free funding.
The event takes place at Parliament House in Canberra next week as part of an initiative from Accelerator for Enterprising Women, designed to support female entrepreneurs.
Wallace has been chosen in the Climate Change and Sustainability category for her business Upcycle, an online proxy reseller that collects and sells unwanted goods on behalf of households.
While helping people resell their unwanted goods, Upcycle is also reducing the amount of waste that ends up in landfill.
Wallace says that on average, Australian households are sitting on an average of almost $7000 of unused items that could be resold.
“One of the first things I listed for Upcycle was a day bed,” Wallace told Women’s Agenda.
“It was part of a job where I was clearing out a massive garage full of stuff. When I arrived at the job I thought: ‘This is going to be a waste of time, none of this is going to sell’.
“But I promised my friend that I’d do my best to help his mum while he was living interstate. To my surprise about three minutes after listing the first item (the day bed) I had an offer for $450. Then for the next 3 hours my phone didn’t stop buzzing. Offer after offer for the 40 or so items I had listed.
“There was one piece in particular I thought there was no way it would sell. It was a huge old wooden built-in unit and was taking up so much space in their garage and would have cost them a fortune to dump at the tip (and a nightmare to transport it there, too!), but after about 4 or 5 days, I had an offer for $400. I was blown away!”
Wallace says people are looking to services like Upcycle because they may be time poor, lack the drive to get it done or are afraid of being scammed on platforms like Facebook Marketplace.
“Not only does Upcycle promote sustainability, circular economy practices, and a positive environmental impact, we have a very strong and scalable business opportunity,” she said.
Wallace will go up against four other founds shortlisted in other categories for the Kickstarter Challenge grand final, including Catherine McDougall’s Support Plus, Catherine Said’s Gooday Corporation, Rosie Dumbrell’s Everform Therapywear and Ebony Kriedemann and Morgan Becker’s InPsync.
The winner will take home $30,000 in equity-free funding and the four runners-up will win $7,500 to put towards their start up.
Ahead of the Kickstarter Challenge grand final next week, Wallace shared some of her key advice to other women looking to start their own side hustle.
“Find one person who believes in you, even more than you believe in yourself. It may be a friend, a mentor, a parent, a co-founder or even your partner, someone who can help inspire you to go from 0 to 1 and then support you to go from 1 to 100,” she said.
“And most importantly someone to celebrate the wins with. I think then you can move mountains.”
Fleur Anderson, a spokesperson for The Accelerator for Enterprising Women, said only 22 per cent of Australian start ups are founded by women, who continue to face barriers in accessing support and funding.
“In 2023, start ups founded by women secured just 4 per cent of the $3.5 billion start-up funding,” she said.
“We know a rising number of women have a desire to create and grow a career in entrepreneurship, but too often lack the confidence and ability to access the funding they need.”
Feature Image: Kylie Wallace and Sheena Boys from Upcycle.