How a 22-year-old Aussie made $100,000 in six weeks with a simple but essential idea he came up with on a night out with friends
- Bailey Page, 22, is the founder of Zip Zap Chargers
- Started the business after a night out on the Sunshine Coast
- He advised other young entrepreneurs to ‘just give it a try’
A young Australian entrepreneur who made $100,000 in just six weeks has revealed the inspiration behind starting a company that sells the country’s first wireless phone charger.
Queensland resident Bailey Page, 22, is the inventor, founder and managing director of Zip Zap Chargers – Australia’s only wireless portable charger for iPhones, AirPods and iPads.
Mr Page’s interest in wireless chargers started in 2020 after a night out with some friends on the Sunshine Coast.
While ordering an Uber ride, his phone battery died, forcing him to walk home.
Mr. Page searched online for a portable wireless charger the next day, but when he couldn’t find what he was looking for, he decided to make his own.
Bailey Page, 22, (pictured) made $100,000 in six weeks after starting his own cable-free charger company
The Queenslander explained that he started Zip Zap Chargers in 2020 when he was forced to walk home from a night out after his phone went dead while ordering an Uber
The then 20-year-old used all of his savings, about $40,000, and spent nine months working with e-commerce website manufacturer Alibaba to develop his product.
He developed a cable-free charger with a unique bracket designed to attach the charger to a device, with the Zip Zap website boosting its fast, innovative technology and high-performance battery power bank.
Users need to use a cable and wait about 2 hours to charge the portable device before use.
Mr Page started with 200 Zip Zap chargers that sold out within two weeks of launching for friends and family in August 2021.
The following month, Mr. Page was invited to promote his product on a segment of the morning show Sunrise and sold over 1,500 units across Australia.
Within six weeks, the young entrepreneur earned more than $100,000 and reached his goal of selling 2,000 chargers that year.
Mr. Page was able to grow his business despite being in his final year of a course in Property Economics and Urban Development at the Queensland University of Technology.
“Essentially my third year, I just had to focus on completing college while doing my degree,” Mr Page told the Courier Mail.
“It was just a lot of late nights and weekend work to really cover up what I couldn’t do during the week when I was in college.”
Mr Page (pictured) advised budding entrepreneurs to ‘try it’ and not let their age stop them from starting their own business
He added that there is a “negative stigma” around starting a business as a young person, but advised budding entrepreneurs to just “try it”.
“I thought to myself, you know what, if I failed, at least I tried,” Mr. Page said.
“I always encourage young people to just give it a try. You have to put a plan on paper. It’s always good to have eyes looking in from the outside and to give your feedback.
‘You can never fail with starting and the biggest hurdle is really just starting.’
Zip Zap Chargers was runner-up in 2022 in Generation Innovation – a program that challenges young entrepreneurs between the ages of 15 and 25 to start their own business.
To date, the company has sold about 6,500 chargers and hopes to expand into the international market.