$1 BILLION FINTECH POWERHOUSE - THE AIRWALLEX STORY

Jack Zhang didn’t wake up a CEO. For nearly a decade he juggled 10+ side businesses—coffee, architecture, real estate, importing—while holding a full-time job. They paid the bills, but none lit him up. Then a painful, personal problem hit: cross-border payments were slow, clunky, and stealing ~4% per transaction. That fee stung every time his mate imported goods from Asia. Jack’s finance-plus-engineering brain saw the target.

THE BIG BET: Jack pulled his CTO and partners out of their retail gigs and went all-in on Airwallex. The first product took a year and barely did one thing: fix international payments. The brutal twist? Two and a half years with zero revenue. Survival meant living on VC oxygen—seed money from Asia and the US, not Australia. Investors didn’t buy traction; they bought team, vision, and a trillion-dollar market.

THE PIVOT THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING: Instead of chasing small businesses, Airwallex shifted to infrastructure and APIs, building banking rails and linking with 50+ global banks. That moat attracted giants like Mastercard, Tencent, and Sequoia, supercharging trust, talent, and distribution.

THE RESULT: In four intense years, Airwallex went from scrappy builders sleeping in the office to a billion-dollar fintech powerhouse.

JACK’S RULE: Obsess over one product—growth—and be ready to sacrifice everything to earn it.

Watch the full video here from the Foundr Youtube Channel