00:10:37 · Jack Zhang
[00:10:37] S1: Yeah, I think the first one is essentially not come down to financial decisions, right? It's come down to okay, it's a five-year lockup, I'll be 39 by the time I finish um the the lockup period, and um if I've survived the five years, and um and and and then you know, like what I'm gonna do at age of 39, how can I build another component business? You know, the business growed 100x um in that year in terms of volume, not revenue, but it's a massive um sort of acceleration of growth. And I can kind of see at that time we already kind of, you know, the mission has already evolved from just a money movement company to uh, you know, building a new generation of a global bank to basically competing with SSBC or Citibank, right? So I think they are so out of date, and I feel that modern businesses deserve better, uh, deserve a better global bank to help them to grow and operate with efficiency. And, you know, it takes 10 years to get on the starting line to build a global bank, right? So um obviously I didn't think it's gonna take that long at that time, and I was not a little naive in thinking about, you know, I didn't know it's gonna take us seven years to get a license in Japan, for example. I didn't know how complicated it is to go live in Mexico, in Korea, in Brazil, all these uh emerging markets as well. So and then there's so many regulatory challenges all around the world. I think I thought as we go in growing, things are gonna get easier over time, but it's went the opposite direction. It's actually getting harder and harder. Yeah.
00:12:12 · Tommy Stadlen, Jack Zhang
[00:12:12] S0: If you said yes to that, well, today Stripe's obviously a lot bigger today, you would have had a lot of stock in Stripe. How much did you walk away from essentially? [00:12:19] S1: Or three or four billion dollars. [00:12:21] S0: And you feel good about it still? [00:12:22] S1: Yeah. I mean, what are gonna what I'm gonna do with extra two, three billion dollars. [00:12:28] S0: Well, yeah, and you've you since then you've grown your business massively as well. [00:12:30] S1: Yeah, so I mean, I also I would say this is in still very early days of of the race, right? So I wouldn't call them a finish line. [00:12:39] S0: Tell us the story about your first angel investor.
00:12:39 · Tommy Stadlen, Jack Zhang
[00:12:39] S0: Tell us the story about your first angel investor. [00:12:42] S1: Yeah, that was a very interesting story. So um, you know, we had a coffee business, and Max, my covonder from Airwalls, was running the coffee shop at the time. Um, and one day I finished work Friday afternoon, and I went to the coffee shop. Uh, then I met Lucy there, who is a friend of Max, uh, who just um uh sort of finished her her work and just resigned from her work in Hong Kong and then went back to Australia. Uh at that time he was thinking about getting married and have kids. And uh at the same time, he's like, Hey, do you want some investment for your coffee business? And looks like you guys are doing pretty well. I was like, no, no, no. I mean, we we're not we we we're not gonna keep doing this coffee business. We actually have some new ideas and uh we we're gonna think about it, do. And it was just a random coffee chat, and he kind of got interested. He said, Hey, why don't we just have dinner? Um, so we we had dinner and we talk about it over dinner, and he's like, How much money are you raising for this global money movement business? And uh we said, we're probably gonna raise a million dollars. Um and he she basically dropped the bomb on the spot. It's like, hey, how about if I give you two? [00:13:50] S0: She offered you two million dollars on the spot. That's the first meeting. It's the first time I met her. And how old is she at this point? She's like mid-20s. So she's in the mid-20s, left her job in banking.
00:13:50 · Tommy Stadlen, Jack Zhang
[00:13:50] S0: She offered you two million dollars on the spot. That's the first meeting. It's the first time I met her. And how old is she at this point? She's like mid-20s. So she's in the mid-20s, left her job in banking. [00:14:00] S1: Yeah, so she has a million dollars that uh that she was gonna buy a house to get married. Yeah. There's some rumors like her family is like super wealthy and all that type of stuff. It's kind of bullshit. And you know, I think you know, her family is wealthy, but not like in a sense that people kind of imagine, right? Her dad is not a billionaire or anything like that, anywhere, anywhere close to that, right? You know what I mean? [00:14:22] S0: So there's not enough money there to make it a sensible decision to offer someone you've just met two million dollars.
00:14:22 · Tommy Stadlen, Jack Zhang, Cameron McLain
[00:14:22] S0: So there's not enough money there to make it a sensible decision to offer someone you've just met two million dollars. [00:14:26] S1: Yeah, so then uh, and I we were pretty shocked and we were like, this can't be true. Uh, you know, and and you know, and then she said, well, why don't we just keep talking about it tomorrow uh in law school? So we all went to university in Melbourne together. So when we went back early, 8 30 in the morning, went to law school at the library, then you know, we can still walk in. And um, and uh then we talk about it. Uh, you know, her husband was there strongly against the idea of doing and uh and then she ended the day she said, Well, um, that's okay. I mean, if you don't want to invest, I'm just gonna invest my family's money. And so, and then she said, I also want to join you guys as well. Wow. Um so um, and we were like, Yeah, I mean, we feel kind of bad if we lose all your money. So you might just join the company if we, you know, lose your money. At least you know that we spent 200% of our effort in in trying to make it successful. [00:15:22] S2: But she she's obviously got a great eye, but what did you say in that meeting? You must have been incredibly convincing.
00:15:22 · Cameron McLain, Jack Zhang, Tommy Stadlen
[00:15:22] S2: But she she's obviously got a great eye, but what did you say in that meeting? You must have been incredibly convincing. [00:15:27] S1: I think it just happened that she always she also just wanted to do something. Yeah. And you know, like sometimes when you're raising money, it's not about how great the founder is, that the VCs already have some ideas and and just somebody showed up at the right spot at the right time. I feel like I'm kind of the guy that just show up at the exact right moment that she feels itchy of doing something. [00:15:50] S0: So wait, what happened? So then you you hang out at law school, she's like, no, I really do want to invest. And then what happened? [00:15:55] S1: We got a term agreed um by 11:30 uh a.m. [00:16:01] S0: Yeah. Um million dollars for how much? [00:16:03] S1: 1 million dollar for 20% of company and a five million dollar post. Um, we didn't have a company registered at the time. Um then I think by Monday, midday, a million US dollars wired into my personal bank account without anything signed. [00:16:16] S0: She just wired a million dollars into your personal account with nothing signed. [00:16:20] S1: Yeah. [00:16:21] S0: That's wild. [00:16:22] S1: Well, I mean, obviously she knows Max. Max is a friend, so I'm a friend of friends. So it's not like we're completely strangers. And how much is that million dollars worth today? [00:16:30] S0: Or how much would it have been? [00:16:31] S1: Probably half a billion dollars. [00:16:32] S0: So she turned a million dollars into half a billion dollars as an angel investor.