00:27:25 · Henrique Dubugras, Jack Zhang
[00:27:25] S0: How do you think that your kind of, like, Chinese background and Australian background kind of, you know, went in your success or culture, you know, at this point? Like, you know, obviously, it seemed like there's, like, a hard work and focused concentration that you learned in China. What did you learn in Australia that you think like? [00:27:40] S1: The the life I grew up is is, you know, academically, you know, very competitive, so you learn this very competitive personality, so you always wanna win. I think that's a very strong character. And then you see people working so hard, and including my parents, you know, my mom, and, know, retiring from a full time job and just to, you know, start building a business when she's, like, 40 something, right? So you just learn a lot of grit from that. And, you know, Australia, people are very kind of curious and, you know, always ask the question, And you kind of get a lot of this curiosity in mindset. And also in Australia, there's a lot of space to do stuff, and the study was not that intense. Then you have a lot of time to kind of think. I And don't know, I mean, actually, was very focused on building relationships when I was in college, even though I was very busy at this work. And I think I was always hanging out with the best student in a college and, you know, mostly, like, you know, a couple of them become cofounders in AirWallet, so I think that's super helpful. [00:28:42] S0: Okay. So you went to this insurance company to write software, then you became a trader, and then what did you do after that?
00:28:42 · Henrique Dubugras, Jack Zhang
[00:28:42] S0: Okay. So you went to this insurance company to write software, then you became a trader, and then what did you do after that? [00:28:51] S1: I... On the side, I was starting starting businesses. I think I was in Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong for a bit sort of... [00:28:57] S0: So that was after the insurance company? [00:28:59] S1: Yeah. After the insurance company, I went to Hong Kong. [00:29:02] S0: So you went back... You know, Hong Kong is not exactly China, but, you know, kind of. [00:29:06] S1: I've never been to Hong Kong at that [00:29:07] S0: time. Okay. [00:29:08] S1: Just like... But they... Tax is low, make a lot of money. [00:29:13] S0: So you just went because you found a job there and not because of anything else? [00:29:16] S1: Yeah. And started as sort of, yeah, in in front office, essentially, like, doing market risk and trading at the same time. [00:29:25] S0: Got it.
00:29:25 · Henrique Dubugras, Jack Zhang
[00:29:25] S0: Got it. [00:29:26] S1: And I built, like, a software called Currency Overlay in my job that we made a bunch of money for the bank. And I basically thought I will be able to lead that business because I created a product with another guys on trading desk. But they then later on, like, moved someone from, like, New York to lead that business, and I was pretty pissed. So I was like, okay, I'm going to resign and start a company doing that. And I think I didn't know why people were buying the product, I think mostly because the brand of the bank instead of the product itself. And when I build the product, I try to sell product myself to those mutual funds and hedge funds, and I just couldn't sell the product. And I realized people are buying the product not because of the product itself, it's because it's Morgan Stanley. And then I thought maybe entrepreneur is not my thing. I went back to Australia and then just like found a job in one of the big four banks in Australia and become, like, this front office algorithmic trader and engineers. [00:30:32] S0: And were you making good money at this point? [00:30:35] S1: Not a lot. I was making, like, 250 sort of thousand dollars. It's, you know, it's not a lot. But then How old are you? I was 25. [00:30:44] S0: I mean, 250 k. In Australia, at 25, like, that was... Seemed like a lot, I imagine, right, when you're going through it compared to, like, what you had before. [00:30:52] S1: Yeah. I guess it's not bad. [00:30:56] S0: How many other kids your age you knew that were making?
00:30:56 · Henrique Dubugras, Jack Zhang
[00:30:56] S0: How many other kids your age you knew that were making? [00:30:58] S1: I mean, I would definitely consider like, you know, doing a decent job. But I started multiple businesses on the side when I went back to Australia. I started a real estate development business. I started like [00:31:12] S0: How did that work? [00:31:14] S1: I mean, it's just really buying land and building properties. [00:31:16] S0: How did you learn how to do [00:31:18] S1: I don't think it's that hard. I mean, you're just buying land and and then I [00:31:21] S0: don't know. I think it's really like, which land do you buy? Like, are you overpaying? Are you underpaying? You know? Like, what do you build? Like [00:31:28] S1: Yeah. I I guess you're just developing. You just go check out houses every weekend and see the auction price and try to understand the price in that suburb and and try to figure out the the council rules of, you know, what the lander can do. Like, can you subdivide to... Can you combine the land and to build multiple properties, build apartments and stuff? [00:31:48] S0: So no one was teaching you this? You're kind of learning by yourself? [00:31:50] S1: Yeah. And I I I partnered with, you know, a friend, Max, who is architect. So he knows a little bit about design, but he doesn't know the developer part, and we're sort of just learning together. [00:32:02] S0: How And did you have the money to buy the first land? [00:32:05] S1: Yeah. So I think in '20... You know, when I... Working my first insurance job in 2008, I made $30,000 and... [00:32:16] S0: Like a bonus?
00:32:16 · Henrique Dubugras, Jack Zhang
[00:32:16] S0: Like a bonus? [00:32:17] S1: Not just savings from my salary. And then the GFC happened, so global financial crisis, and the house price went down massively. You know, I leveraged 90% to borrow a loan, and I used that money to purchase the first property. In Australia. That property appreciated 30% within twelve months Wow. In 2009. And so that kind of made, you know, dollars 150 ish thousand. Then I refinanced the property, so I got more than $150,000 out. Then I just keep doing the same thing again and again. I'm just buying a bunch of properties, and the price has gone up again. I leveraged ridiculously. Wow. Anything side of your job. Yeah. If there's anything happen, I will basically bankrupt because I was leveraging so much. [00:33:05] S0: Wow. [00:33:06] S1: At the peak, you know, I was making 200 something dollars... 200 something thousand dollars, I was levered... I borrowed more than 10,000,000 from the [00:33:12] S0: bank. Really? Yeah. And the banks are totally fine doing it? [00:33:16] S1: Yeah. Because it's a it's a property backed finance. [00:33:18] S0: Yeah. Oh, but, like, in The US, it's hard to get Yeah. [00:33:21] S1: Don't think I don't think you can do that in The US, and I can get 95% leveraged finance when I was, as an employee of the bank. [00:33:29] S0: Wow. Oh, so that's, a reason why you also kept the job because [00:33:31] S1: you can [00:33:32] S0: get better leverage. [00:33:32] S1: Yes. [00:33:33] S0: Ah, so interesting.
00:33:33 · Henrique Dubugras, Jack Zhang
[00:33:33] S0: Ah, so interesting. [00:33:35] S1: Yeah. And I I... At one point, I was making a couple million dollar on the side from my real estate business, from my... You know, I started a burger chain. I started a coffee chain. [00:33:45] S0: Chain? Tell me more about that. [00:33:46] S1: Like, what's [00:33:46] S0: the burger chain story? [00:33:48] S1: That is called tuck and close. So it's kind of together with my coffee business and Coffee. [00:33:53] S0: We don't talk about that. Let's talk about the coffee business too. [00:33:56] S1: Yeah. So we, you know, we started sort of residential development. We were like, oh, how do we get into commercial real estate? You know, that's an area that we never really touched. And at the same time, I was also reading the, what they call like Telstra, which is a large telecom in Australia. This is like Telstra Fast 50 Companies. It's like the fast growing 50 companies in Australia. And I look at the 50 list, about a third of them is in retail. It's like in food, F and B, you know, retail businesses. I'm like, okay, it seems like that's a very good business to be making money, and let's just get into that. And then maybe we can look at how to do commercial real estate at the same time. Yeah, we started, like, build the first shop and we built the coffee business. And that's kind of how we started Airwallex effectively. And it's because we were importing beans from Brazil, from Indonesia. [00:34:46] S0: Like, how do you even, like, know who to import beans from? You know? Like, how do you find suppliers at that time and, like