At 30, Nick Molnar is Australia’s youngest self-made billionaire.
The young entrepreneur gained notoriety and wealth as co-founder and co-CEO of Afterpay, a deferred payments platform that allows users to spread the cost of their purchases over regular, interest-free installments.
This year, the company enjoyed a boost due to the coronavirus-induced shift to e-commerce and growing demand for digital payments, driving the company’s stock price up 1,300% and catapulting its co-founders to billionaire status.
But without the advice of Molnar’s old boss, it might not have happened.
“He was the one who pushed me into it,” Molnar told CNBC Make It.
Pushed by his boss
In 2012, Molnar, an economics graduate from the University of Sydney, worked as an investment analyst with Mark Carnegie, the founding partner of Australian private equity firm MH Carnegie & Co.
Molnar was already a dedicated entrepreneur and had sold jewelry on eBay from his bedroom while in college. But when he wanted to expand and start the business When he started his own jewelry website, Carnegie was the one who gave him the impetus.
I don’t know why you work here, you have to do this full time.
Nick Molnar
Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Afterpay
“The man who ran the fund, a gentleman named Mark Carnegie, had to turn around and say, ‘I don’t know why you work here, you have to do this full time,'” Molnar recalls.
Carnegie also sweetened the deal, offering to keep Molnar’s job for 12 months so he could return if things didn’t work out.
“He knew I would never take it on, but it gave me the confidence to try,” said Molnar, who launched Ice Online months later.
Advice for aspiring entrepreneurs
Until today the website remains active. But it wasn’t until his next venture, Afterpay, which launched less than two years later, that Molnar found real success.
Now Molnar is the one giving advice.
“It’s great to have a part-time job,” Molnar said, “(But) I think there are expectations about how far you can go with a part-time job.”
When you rip off the band-aid, it’s amazing the growth you can see in a company.
Nick Molnar
Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Afterpay