IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO RAISE A SUCCESSFUL MARKET
WHEN Sarah Schoeller and Marissa Bowden founded The Village Markets, Burleigh wasn’t a hipster hotspot and MySpace was popular.
Fast forward nine years and the markets are a southern Gold Coast institution and the duo are up for the Entrepreneur of the Year gong at the Cosmopolitan Women of the Year awards.
“Marissa and I worked together for a finance company in marketing and we used to talk about how the Gold Coast didn’t have a great fashion market,” Sarah said.
“When we were made redundant (during the GFC) we had some time on our hands.
“We’d been to some great markets in London and Sydney so we decided to put our own flair on it and focused on local designers, live music and street food.
“Burleigh was a little sleepy seaside village when we started, there weren’t any cool cafes or restaurants.
“And our main social tool was MySpace back then.”
Marissa said the markets were a tool to put the Gold Coast “back on the map”.
“We wanted to give it (the Coast) a lot more credit than it was getting,” she said.
“A lot of designers were leaving the Gold Coast to launch their labels in Sydney or Melbourne but we knew there was a lot more to the city.” Vote at cosmopolitan.com.au