Aussie teen chases entrepreneurial dreams with $200 earned at Macca’s and Subway

MEET Zac Darch, the Aussie teen who’s about to flip his first business for a tidy five-figure sum. And he got started with just $200.

MEET Zac Darch, the Brisbane teen who was never going to take the path most travelled.

While his peers are starting uni or exploring the world on their gap years, Darch is poised to flip his first company as a techpreneur.

Two years after launching a prototype with $200 earned slogging it out as a fast food slave, Darch’s travel auction website Flight Penny was listed for sale on Flippa.

That’s the online marketplace where entrepreneurs trade in start-ups — like Ship Your Enemies Glitter, which earned its 22-year-old Australian founder Matthew Carpenter a whopping $118,540 (US$85,000) just two weeks after launching the site he started “as a joke” in January.

Darch’s project is a little more carefully thought out and he believes it’s primed to crack the big time.

If he’s right, he could be looking at a five-figure payout later this week — not bad for a project he started with a school mate when the pair were just 16-years-old.

The high school graduate told news.com.au he enrolled at university briefly earlier this year, but pulled out to devote himself to the entrepreneurial life.

“My excitement and ideas for FlightPenny took over,” he said.

“I know how big this could become. I feel that business really is my passion and who I am.”

Darch said the site could soon reach a tipping point in user numbers that could pave the way for an international expansion.

Darch started Flight Penny’s original prototype for $200 with school mate Jonathan Shearman when the pair were just 16-years-old. Picture: Richard Walker

Like eBay for travellers, Flight Penny combines cheap airfares with an element of chance that makes it possible to fly to Bora Bora, India, Fiji, Bali, The Philippines or New Zealand for the price of a cut lunch.

One cent bids are placed on flight packages for two people, and while the winner takes all, the losers forfeit the cost of playing — levied at $1 for each bid.

This bidding fee is retained by Flight Penny, meaning the company can make a profit on the flights sold, depending on how many bidders participate.

After starting out with his school mate Jonathan Shearman, who left to pursue a separate venture, Darch went looking for an investor to bankroll the project’s next phase.

“I was working in Grade 11 at two part-time jobs at Subway and McDonalds and funnelling any cash I could into the business,” he said.

“We built the prototype just to test the market, to see if people wanted it. So we spent $200 on a basic website, then we started looking at what features the site needed to have.”

Darch spent his last year of high school writing an in-depth business plan in his spare time, then pitched it to angel investors.

“At 17, you can’t go to the bank and ask for money — they’ll just shut the door on you,” he said.

Out of nine interested parties, he struck a deal with a 25-year-old defence force professional who took an equal 50 per cent share of the business.

“Getting a shareholder on board was a big step,” Darch said.

“Marcus has really been a good support, and it’s good to have someone slightly older than me on the board to look up to.”

Living the dream: Zach Darch always wanted to be an entrepreneur.

Darch is adamant that the business can succeed, with its new, mobile-friendly website and features to give bidders more certainty.

A major innovation is that losing bidders can reclaim their bid fees towards the retail price of a flight to the destination they were shooting for, within two days of the auction.

Darch argued that this meant it was “impossible to lose” on the site, billed as a “fun and interactive” way to plan a holiday.

“So if you place 100 bids on a Brisbane to Sydney flight worth $200, and you spend $100 on bids but you don’t win then, if you wish to buy that flight, you can use the $100 towards the ticket,” Darch said. “It’s a risk-free option.”

Also new is a commitment to donate 10 per cent of the end price of every auction, and each bidding pack sold, to Unicef’s Champions for Children Syrian Refugee Fund.

Users buy packs of bids starting through PayPal, with five free bids for new users and incentives to buy larger bidding packages.

Darch has an agreement with STA Travel, and users are taken to the STA website to process their bookings.

Potential future promotions include a loyalty rewards program that would allow bidders to earn “PennyPoints” towards iPads, around-the-world trips, gift cards and charity donations.

“It’s very scaleable,” Darch said.

With five days to go on the Flippa sale, we’ll soon see what the market has to say about that.

Challenges faced by penny auction sites in the past have included disgruntled customers and criticism over marketing practices, with some arguing that “most people necessarily have to lose money for the model to work”.

[e-mail]