The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
00:08:32 · Harry Stebbings, Jack Zhang, Harry Stebbings
[00:08:32] S2: Do you know what? I don't actually drive. I don't know if you noticed. I haven't passed my test. It's one of my many flaws. And so petrol station is not something I know too well, but I I will go for a lolly. So we're there. We're at Melbourne University this time, and we've met our three cofounders at this point. Correct? [00:08:46] S0: I met one out of the three co founders when I got into University of Melbourne, so the first year. So we went to basically the same faculty, and we all started computer science. My CTO, Jacob, he's like one year older than me, but like 100 times smarter. [00:09:01] S1: So you meet [00:09:02] S2: him at university, you become friends. Do you start tinkering on ideas together then when you're doing CS together? [00:09:08] S0: I mean, they spend most of the time playing DOTA and then competing against each other, and I was pretty suck at playing DOTA, to be fair. And I was literally you know, I spent most of my time working, little time in a university. Know, I kind of just try to spend as much as I can. But, know, I wasn't like the best student in my college. Compared to my high school, I was like the top, top student of the school, where at university, was just like an average student because I just didn't spend enough time to study. [00:09:38] S2: Dude, you're working sixteen hours a day. I mean, poor you. The university is like the side gig. So what was the first thing that you started? If I say to you, like, your first entrepreneurial thing, what was your first entrepreneurial thing?
00:09:49 · Jack Zhang
[00:09:49] S0: So I started a magazine called Urban Exploration when I was back in high school. I was like 13, 14, together with the student in the sort of student society. And everyone's obviously working for free. And, you know, we need to raise money for student funding. And I need to figure out how to do that. And we were essentially going to the restaurants and, you know, computer shops and stuff around the school to raise money. They were like, oh, why don't you just send some flyer up just for $2 per person and give you some money? But we kind of nobody wanted to take flyers. Like who cares? So that we thought we might just write something more interesting and put those ads for those restaurants in the essentially, the magazine or booklet we created. And then hopefully that people will be interested to take it, right? So but because we write quite interesting stories, like student love stories, how to play like Counter Strike, and because the school that we were in are the best schools and we write really interesting stories and that magazine just got viral because we kind of printed out of the school for free and we didn't have any costs and we have very limited print and everyone kind of want a copy of it. And I think over like a year and a half, we got like 8,000 merchants that putting ads magazine. And we actually made decent amount of money. And then obviously we kind of donated to the school. Kind of a massive early success in my, I would say, I grew up, you know, before I came to Australia.
00:11:17 · Harry Stebbings, Jack Zhang
[00:11:17] S2: Do you think people are born entrepreneurs? Or do you think you can become one when you think back to that as a 13, 14 year old? [00:11:25] S0: I think when you grow up, that if you taste what success looks like early, whether a spot or any type of mass competition or Olympic competition or any type of competition or any sort of team spots, the tough experience, you know, when I kind of lost financial support and when my family kind of lost most of the money, that really toughen you up, right? You become quite resilient. And when you're working one hundred hours a week at this age and had to go through that mental challenge of figuring your life out at such a young age, I think you become a lot more resilient. People ask, you know, I get burned out. I mean, I'm just working too hard and, you know, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, dude, what are you talking about? You know, do you know what is, a tough life looks like? In Australia especially, it's a very wealthy country in general, and there's less people who have experienced these tough things in life. And generally people have a different perspective of what life is, right? [00:12:26] S2: So funny for me. I work seven days a week. And three years in people were like, you know what? You won't be able to keep this up. Five years in, you know, you've done five, but you won't be able to keep this up. [00:12:36] S0: That's... I did one hundred hours a week for about twenty years, dude. [00:12:40] S2: And you still look about 25. [00:12:43] S0: Well, I I kind of look a bit old now, but...
00:12:43 · Jack Zhang, Harry Stebbings, Harry Stebbings
[00:12:43] S0: Well, I I kind of look a bit old now, but... [00:12:46] S1: And the amazing thing is [00:12:47] S2: that you did that on things you didn't love. Like, I've done a hundred hours a week for staff for ten years. But dude, mine is like in cushy offices with lovely things around me. You did shit jobs, no offense, in the early years, working insane hours. That's also what's so insane. Like lemon factories and restaurants. [00:13:05] S0: I didn't enjoy those jobs, right? So when I was working in the lemon factory, under the 40 degrees sun and carrying these boxes or washing dishes, I mean, I'm thinking about one day, don't I want to do this anymore. I want to do a real proper job. I want to write a code. [00:13:22] S2: The show has been very successful, think, but also because I'm very open about my life. I saw my grandparents lose everything. They lose their home overnight. You lose all security as a family, and it's very jarring. I'm always actually running from that. The reason I work so ferociously hard is because I don't want my family to ever be in that place. That's what I'm... Why I'm working so hard, if I'm honest. Are you running from that financial insecurity still? Or do you think you're running towards something, if I were to ask you? I think that you
00:13:22 · Harry Stebbings, Jack Zhang
[00:13:22] S2: The show has been very successful, think, but also because I'm very open about my life. I saw my grandparents lose everything. They lose their home overnight. You lose all security as a family, and it's very jarring. I'm always actually running from that. The reason I work so ferociously hard is because I don't want my family to ever be in that place. That's what I'm... Why I'm working so hard, if I'm honest. Are you running from that financial insecurity still? Or do you think you're running towards something, if I were to ask you? I think that you [00:13:53] S0: have different phases in life, right? So that's kind of why I started AirWallox. You know, basically after I graduated, I went to work at Aviva. I worked in a bunch of investment banks as a developeralgorithmic trader. And when I was doing those jobs, and I really enjoyed writing code. But that's not enough to give me the financial security. So I was doing a lot of stuff on the side. I was importing, exporting businesses for exporting olive oils and wine from Australia. [00:14:24] S2: Sorry, you had an import? Tell me about what.
00:14:24 · Harry Stebbings, Jack Zhang
[00:14:24] S2: Sorry, you had an import? Tell me about what. [00:14:26] S0: Yeah, so I basically exporting olive oil and wine of Australia to, you know, China and other countries. And I was importing textiles from China to Australia. And I had a business of real estate development. I have a business of architecture and project management. And I have all these side businesses that, you know, to be frank, generating millions of income every year passively. Like, you know, obviously I work full time, you know, I work pretty hard in my job. And, you know, I work another six, seven, eight hours, and I work all the weekends for my side hustle. You know, make $200,000 a year on my full time job. And I make $23.04, $5,000,000 a year on the other side hustle as kind of that business is getting more mature. [00:15:11] S2: Dude, how the fuck did you see that? $23.04... I mean, that's real money when you are full time working at Aviva or as an algo trader, and then you're doing an import export business of olive oil. That's not an easy business to do, is it? It's actually pretty easy. [00:15:28] S0: You know, you think about it. Right? Tell me. [00:15:30] S2: Just you