Airwallex CEO & Co-Founder, Jack Zhang: The Angel That Turned $1M into $1BN

Airwallex is the most insane story in startups. Jack Zhang is the Co-Founder and CEO of Airwallex, one of the world’s fastest-growing global payments and financial infrastructure companies. Since founding the company in 2015, Jack has scaled Airwallex to over $100B in annual payment volume, $360M in run-rate gross profit, and a global team of 1,500+ employees. Under his leadership, Airwallex has raised over $900M from investors including Square Peg, Lone Pine, and Tencent. ---------------------------------------------- In Today’s Episode We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 01:03 From Lemon Factory and Petrol Station to Billionaire: The Early Days 11:39 $5M Side Hustle While Working Full-time: How Jack Did It 23:14 Failing Three Times Before Product-Market-Fit 30:22 The Term Sheet That Got Pulled and Lost Matrix $1BN 35:28 Why We Rejected Stripe’s $1.2BN Acquisition Offer 51:37 0-$1B Transaction Volume in 9 Months: How Shein Saved Airwallex 01:15:52 When COVID Hit, They Lost 50% of Revenue Overnight 01:19:03 We F****** Up Scaling Internationally... & Burnt $200M/year 01:23:14 Why Jack is Taking Out a Line of Debt for $70M 01:24:00 The Truth About Secondaries and How Much is “Enough” 01:28:00 The Hiring Mistakes that Almost Broke the Culture ----------------------------------------------- Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3j2KMcZTtgTNBKwtZBMHvl?si=85bc9196860e4466 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-twenty-minute-vc-20vc-venture-capital-startup/id958230465 Follow Harry Stebbings on X: https://twitter.com/HarryStebbings Follow Jack Zhang on X: https://twitter.com/awxjack Follow 20VC on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/20vchq Follow 20VC on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@20vc_tok Visit our Website: https://www.20vc.com Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/contact ----------------------------------------------- #20vc #harrystebbings #jackzhang #airwallex #founder #ceo