Yahoo Finance Three entrepreneurs on the moment that led them to start their businesses
If you take the largest food rescue operation in the world, a billion-dollar tech unicorn and one of Australia’s first digital banks, what do you get?
Three successful entrepreneurs: Ronni Kahn, Lucy Liu and Steve Weston.
And speaking to Yahoo Finance’s All Markets Summit audience, these three business leaders spill on the moment that led them to start their businesses.
Also read: OzHarvest founder Ronni Kahn on why we need to redefine success
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Also read: Coffee shop to billion-dollar startup: Lucy Liu shares the Airwallex story
‘It was two minutes of serendipity’
For Volt Bank CEO, Weston, he says it was “probably two minutes of serendipity”.
“Everyone in the school that I went to had to do a week’s worth of work experience,” Weston said.
“My second choice was a bank, and it wasn’t because I had aspirations of working in a bank, it was because I grew up in a little town in North Queensland, and I knew that a bank had an air conditioner”
But during his time at the bank, Weston says it was the first time he remembered getting positive feedback.
“I ended up leaving school at 15 years old and not coming back.”
“What more?”
For OzHarvest founder Kahn, it was a sense of unfulfillment.
“I reached a point in my life where I had a business that was providing me with an income,” Kahn said. “Not rich, but I had a roof over my head, food on my table, and I’m wondering, ‘what more?’”
Kahn said in her events business, she realised she was producing ‘masses of exquisite food’, and she realised she needed a solution to the wastage that would inevitably occur.
“I thought, ‘what if I could collect the surplus food and deliver it to hungry people?’”
“I guess 125 million meals later, it hasn’t been such a bad idea.”
“I felt very un-challenged”
For Airwallex co-founder Liu, she simply wanted a challenge.
“I went to a bank after uni, and I was there for about two years. I felt very un-challenged,” Liu said.
“I was married as well, so I went on a very long trip with my husband around Europe and then came back to Melbourne and took a break.
“At that time I met with my co-founders who were actually my friends back in uni, and they pitched me this idea.
“I think what really worked well between the founding team was that we all have very different backgrounds.”
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