Mr Mirkin (26) and his team of software developers have created a commercial lease management program for law firms.
The idea for the lease software came from one of the partners of Wilkinson Adams, where Mr Mirkin was working.
The law firm's partners realised that when commercial rent or lease reviews were due, they never heard from their clients.
"They had no idea how much it was costing them in business. The answer was to develop and build a software program that could track that."
Mr Mirkin, a law graduate, decided to do an MBA, first at Otago and then at Duke University in North Carolina, where he worked through the business plan for his company Nomos.
Returning to Dunedin, he had to make a decision about going back into law or going into business. The lure of establishing a Dunedin-based business proved the stronger of the two and Mr Mirkin bought the software idea off the original founder, who will receive royalties when the company moves into profit.
Rather than a software company, he described Nomos as a commercial lease company which has law firms for clients.
The web-based application allowed law firms to track commercial rent and lease arrangements. When changes were needed, the program emailed clients and law firms with the information needed.
"The process is much more efficient."
The program allowed commercial building owners to log in on their iPhone and pull up any of their leases, he said.
One of the problems in developing the new program had been finding developers, he said.
Nomos had recently employed a full-time developer in Melbourne as Mr Mirkin could not find anyone locally. The next nearest suitable person was in Trinidad and Tobago.
A Dunedin law and business graduate was another developer, there were two other full-time staff, two part-time developers and two interns from the Otago Polytechnic.
Mr Mirkin has a "romantic view" of his business future, which he saw as firmly entrenched in Dunedin.
"I view my success through how many jobs I can create. It is nice to think about revenue, profit and gross margins. But in the end, if I can create 30 jobs that were not there before, then I am very happy.
"I'm passionate about Dunedin. I was born and bred here, went to school here and university."
However, there was a touch of reality sinking home, he said.
Until recently, Nomos had used hosted servers in the United States for $US60 ($NZ73).
Because the company needed to ensure the integrity of clients' data, it had moved to New Zealand servers which could accommodate Oracle-based programs.
The cost had risen to $2500 for the next six months, plus $7000 establishment costs.
So far, Mr Mirkin had raised $100,000 from local seed investors with promises of a further $150,000. He had only just started paying himself a reduced salary after providing "sweat equity" for about 12 months.
Instead of paying a local developer $70,000 to $80,000 in salary, Nomos was paying a six-figure salary to an overseas developer because local technology graduates were not being tutored in Oracle.
"It is an expensive process but part of what has to be done to create a successful Dunedin-based company. We are a $2 million company but Dunedin minds are not set for a $2 million start-up."
Nomos was expecting to expand into New South Wales next year after talks with the Law Society there, he said. The Dunedin head office would be used to expand both nationally and internationally.
Cash flow should become positive from October-November, once the product was launched with six clients. Other law firms had expressed interest and Mr Mirkin said he hoped that a successful launch would attract further client interest.
