The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
00:28:53 · Harry Stebbings, Jack Zhang
[00:28:53] S2: I love this. So you resign, you go to Max, and you're like, right. Let's do this. Let's get to work on our wallets. [00:28:59] S0: Yeah. And I... There's a fifth co founder, which is Kellogg, and I used to work together. I basically, you know, like, kinda forced him to resign because he was, like, got three kids, you know, like a lot of obligation. And he's the best one of best engineers I know. And we worked together in National Australia Bank. And so basically me, Max, and Lucy, we just like went to the downstairs of the net building. Was like, we're not going to leave until you resign. So go resign. And she was stuck there for two hours talking to his manager, which is also my previous manager. And I was like, I know that you're going get returned because you're of the best engineers they ever had. But, dude, we're not gonna leave until you resign, whatever that time is. So go go fucking get resigned. And he did. [00:29:45] S2: Deal with your wife, Lacey. [00:29:46] S0: We kinda, like, literally forced him to to resign. [00:29:50] S2: Were you nervous at all about leaving the safety net, going all in on Airwallex? Was there ever a part of you that was like, this is real. I'm leaving security. [00:29:58] S0: Yeah. I mean, like... And also, like, early days, I also went, like, all in. Right? I just... We just live in, like, a 10 square meter office. We sleep in a sleeping bag, and we're just working there twenty hours a day running cold. [00:30:11] S2: You slept in a sleeping bag?
00:30:11 · Harry Stebbings, Jack Zhang
[00:30:11] S2: You slept in a sleeping bag? [00:30:12] S0: Yeah. Me and Max and Jacob, three of us literally obviously, kind of hard for Lucy, the girl, to fit in. But three of us will literally and Max, actually four of us, and we'll we'll just, like, leave in the office. [00:30:24] S2: Okay. So we've got a million dollars. You've got the four of you, and now you're just building product at this stage. Correct? [00:30:30] S0: And then raising money, because I don't think the million is enough. [00:30:32] S2: Yeah. The million is not gonna get you very [00:30:34] S0: Yeah. So we we raised another $2,000,000 from a VC in Hong Kong because all the all the VCs kind of rejected me in Australia. It was only three VC. It's so funny, though. [00:30:44] S2: Let's just go to that. Sorry. Australian VCs rejected you. So what happens? You go out, you don't have product at this time, but you've got the million dollars from Lucy. And so you're like, hey. I'm Jack, and I'm doing AirWallocks. What happens?
00:30:44 · Harry Stebbings, Jack Zhang
[00:30:44] S2: Let's just go to that. Sorry. Australian VCs rejected you. So what happens? You go out, you don't have product at this time, but you've got the million dollars from Lucy. And so you're like, hey. I'm Jack, and I'm doing AirWallocks. What happens? [00:30:55] S0: Yeah. Basically, I went out to pitching the idea of building a new foreign exchange and money movement network. A lot of people think I'm crazy. And one of the VCs actually believed in and actually wanted to write a check and lead the round. But I think one of the founders of the VC, that is Matrix Partners, and they give the term sheet they signed and they took it back. Yeah, so they basically said, I had a call with the founder after they signed the term sheet and they were like, oh, I don't think this algorithm thing going to work and that's not a defensibility anyway. And yeah, so they basically took it aback. [00:31:34] S2: What deal did they have on the table? [00:31:36] S0: That was $10,000,000 post. So $2,000,000 $8,000,000 pre. And I literally like rejected all the other VC already by that time, and the only one I haven't rejected is this Gobi VC and from Hong they end up putting $1,000,000 and plus other smaller VCs that are putting the $2,000,000 together. [00:31:56] S2: That is a billion dollar pullback. [00:31:58] S0: Yes. I mean, they should have closed the deal as they signed the term sheet. [00:32:02] S2: They signed the term sheet? [00:32:03] S0: Yeah. They [00:32:04] S2: signed. Wow. Yeah. That's appalling. That's bad bad. Yeah. Okay. And so we have
00:32:04 · Harry Stebbings, Jack Zhang
[00:32:04] S2: signed. Wow. Yeah. That's appalling. That's bad bad. Yeah. Okay. And so we have [00:32:09] S0: And this is, like, one of the most famous VCs in Asia. [00:32:12] S2: And the other Australian VC said no? [00:32:14] S0: Yeah. They didn't even wanted to meet me. [00:32:16] S2: They didn't wanna meet you? [00:32:17] S0: No. So I didn't even get a meeting. I just got an email. So funny. Both VCs rejected me. Now it's on Airwalla's cap table. No way. Yes, they invested in a 6,200,000,000 valuation. [00:32:28] S2: A square pack and... [00:32:29] S0: No, so square pack invested in Series A plus Okay. Essentially that's, you know, saved us from dying. So we... There's like three times that we almost died, and that's the second time that we almost ran out of money. SquarePack invested it. And but Blackbird and Airtree was the two largest VC in Australia together with SquarePack, they're three biggest VC. Yeah, but Airtree and Blackbird rejected us multiple times, and they now joined they wrote the largest check at $6,200,000,000 ever in our history. [00:33:02] S2: Woah. So fun fact, John Henderson, who's at Airtree, was the first person to ever believe in me. He introduced me to, like, one of my business partners. He's introduced me to my best friends. So, John, I don't think you were probably at Airdrie at that point, but... [00:33:15] S0: I I think he was. [00:33:17] S2: Well, then you fucked up. [00:33:19] S0: No. But, like, I I think we we had, like, you know, I love John and we had a great conversation, but you know, I guess for whatever reason I didn't invest.
00:33:19 · Jack Zhang, Harry Stebbings, Harry Stebbings
[00:33:19] S0: No. But, like, I I think we we had, like, you know, I love John and we had a great conversation, but you know, I guess for whatever reason I didn't invest. [00:33:27] S2: I don't get it. I'm just gonna be totally honest. Like, you know, you very kindly invested in Project Europe. It's so obvious. [00:33:33] S0: But dude, I wouldn't. I have a VC now on the side, right? I have a VC called Capital forty nine, and wouldn't invest in myself. [00:33:39] S1: I think that's crap. Was talking to them, [00:33:41] S2: and you're a bad investor. Because if [00:33:42] S1: I had spent any time with you, I would have asked you about growing up and your first jobs in a lemon factory and being a restaurant waiter. [00:33:51] S0: Nobody ever asked me. [00:33:52] S1: That's what's ridiculous. Why did no one ever ask you? Because if I heard that... [00:33:56] S0: You know who asked that? Who? At Siri C, Yuri Miller from DSC asked me. [00:34:01] S1: That's why Yuri is Yuri. But dude, your product doesn't matter. [00:34:04] S0: That's crazy. So that's another crazy story. Basically, I basically first time with Yuri and we talked to, like I talked to the partner about the business obviously because that's Series C and that's straight after I rejected the Stripe acquisition offer and Yuri basically didn't ask me anything about my personal, about my business. He just asked me a bunch of stuff how I grew up. Yeah. And after that, they were like, we're gonna invest at 1,100,000,000, a $100,000,000. So I was like, literally, like, within two hours, we grade the term. It's crazy.
00:34:04 · Jack Zhang, Harry Stebbings
[00:34:04] S0: That's crazy. So that's another crazy story. Basically, I basically first time with Yuri and we talked to, like I talked to the partner about the business obviously because that's Series C and that's straight after I rejected the Stripe acquisition offer and Yuri basically didn't ask me anything about my personal, about my business. He just asked me a bunch of stuff how I grew up. Yeah. And after that, they were like, we're gonna invest at 1,100,000,000, a $100,000,000. So I was like, literally, like, within two hours, we grade the term. It's crazy. [00:34:34] S2: But this is what I find astonishing, which is again, dude, I really don't care what your business is. No offense. You are the person who's gonna drive it. You will be for the next twenty years. I can tell whether I'm gonna invest in you from hearing about how you think about working in the Lemon Factory and being on your own in Australia at 16 with no financial security. Dude, there are so few people who can go through that unwavering hard shit times and get through it. [00:34:57] S0: Yeah. But like, you wouldn't volunteer, like, to pitch your story that before people ask you. You know what I mean? [00:35:01] S2: That's where, like, the onus is on the question asker. I don't think there's ever such thing as a bad you doing a bad interview. No one ever gives me a bad interview. I give them a bad interview, which is me not asking the right questions. Same for VC. [00:35:15] S0: Well, you're asking the right question now, maybe.