Jack Zhang says he worked around 100 hours a week for two decades and had multiple anxiety attacks during Airwallex's startup phase.
Airwallex's first idea, a peer-to-peer currency matching algorithm, failed because it needed more scale, and its second, a bill pay platform for SMEs, failed on customer acquisition costs above $1,000.
Zhang says his side businesses earned about ten times his full-time salary, which is why he never sought promotion at NAB and ANZ before founding Airwallex in December 2015.
Airwallex's Jack Zhang on building payments through two failed pivots
Airwallex came out of repeated failure rather than one clean insight. Jack Zhang's years of side businesses exposed him to payment pain, and two failed product versions showed him where scale and customers were. The company now aims at large enterprises and a global brand to challenge SWIFT and the big banks.
Takeaways
Immigrant hustle built Zhang's work ethic. Zhang came to Australia at about 15 and lived with a local family. He tended bar at the Westin, jailbroke PlayStations for $150 each and worked up to sixteen hours a day while studying. That became about 100 hours a week for twenty years.
Side businesses outearned his banking salary. Through his twenties Zhang ran textile imports, wine and olive oil exports, property development, a burger shop and Tuck and Co coffee. Side income ran about ten times his salary, so he never sought promotion at NAB or ANZ. Coffee payment problems inspired Airwallex.
Borrowed credibility opened licences and early funding. Venture money from Australia was rare in 2015 and 2016. A former manager wrote to ASIC backing the licence applications, and Mastercard's Start Pass program opened doors. Series A backers included Tencent and Mastercard.
Personality beats intelligence when a company scales fast. Zhang says ego and territorial behaviour caused most early departures, and he asks candidates to keep probing their own answers. Airwallex moved to Hong Kong to reach larger Asian businesses, and many early Series A hires remain after eight years.
McLaren deal is a brand bet against banks. Zhang wants a brand big enough to rival HSBC and Citibank. McLaren uses Airwallex for vendor payments and treasury, and the company powers payments on its new merchandise platform. Zhang became a Formula One fan only after the Netflix series.
Zhang now weighs time above money. A MessageBird founder told him money is fluid but time is not. After multiple anxiety attacks in the startup phase, he now plays more golf and skis. He wants his daughter Ella to follow her passion rather than a big career.
Airwallex's three product versions
The first idea was a peer-to-peer algorithm matching people who wanted to exchange currencies. It failed because it needed more scale, and the first twelve to eighteen months became a disaster.
The second version was a bill pay platform for SMEs built on interbank FX trading. It failed because customer acquisition costs exceeded $1,000 and the supported payment corridors were too limited.
The third version built direct payment rails for large enterprises to disrupt SWIFT, the correspondent banking network created in 1973. Mastercard and Tencent were the first customers.
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