When Shawn Pang founded HashMatrix, he never imagined that it would become the agency behind popular AI products from tech giants Alibaba, ByteDance, and Insta360 and fast-growing startups like Rabbit R1, Pix AI, and Kling.

As it grew, it came up against the same problem repeatedly—one that it saw big tech and startups had yet to solve: payment. Across their clients, it was often an issue when expanding overseas. Vendors, talent, and contractors in emerging markets that they wanted to work with often requested—or could only receive—stablecoin because of the shortcomings in traditional systems.

So, HashMatrix developed an MVP payroll system to handle payments in the cryptocurrency. What started out as running on spreadsheets soon processed “nearly half a million dollars each month.”

It’s since evolved to a platform making stablecoin solutions more accessible, intuitive, and compliant for SMBs—from invoicing to payroll to social commerce—and raised $1.5 million in pre-seed funding from venture capital firms Draper Dragon, Amber Group, KuCoin Exchange, Oak Grove Ventures, and others.

This is the story of how a series of pivots led to a breakthrough that started with an MVP running on spreadsheets and soon processed about half a million each month.

00:00–3:35: Show, episode, and guest intro

3:35–7:40: Identifying what will become a new phenomenon

7:40–17:07: The origin story behind AllScale

17:07–19:44: Why other companies have yet to solve the problem AllScale is tackling

19:44–27:00: How exactly AllScale’s invoicing, payroll, and social commerce products work

27:00–28:39: Rewarding stories from AllScale’s clients

28:39–32:00: Biggest problems faced in building on AllScale

32:00–34:25: Three things that Shawn believes in that’s been pivotal to his success

34:25–35:30: What can be expected next from AllScale in the coming months

35:30–37:00: Reflections on Vancouver’s innovation ecosystem