A tea shop transaction should have been routine. David Wang, then a finance professional with stints at Credit Suisse and Blue Pool Capital behind him, was simply buying birthday tea for his mother. But when the cashier mentioned a credit card deal he'd never heard of - one that would save him money and throw in freebies - something clicked.

‍

"Maybe naively, I thought I knew all the deals that were in the market," Wang recalls. It turned out he didn't. And that small revelation would eventually lead him to build Krip, Hong Kong's first centralised credit card deals platform, before its acquisition by Singapore's HeyMax in July 2025.

‍

Wang's entrepreneurial instincts emerged at the University of Michigan, where he founded a student club helping peers discover career paths. One student the club mentored landed a Wall Street role perfectly suited to his background. "To see the fruits of that labor materialise into a very positive outcome, that was something that was very meaningful to me." 

‍

Wang's 2019 epiphany revealed a massive inefficiency hiding in plain sight. Hong Kong had thousands of credit card deals scattered across banks, merchants, and payment providers. Consumers missed savings. Businesses wasted marketing spend on promotions that never reached their audience.

‍

Krip would aggregate everything, eventually cataloguing over 6,000 deals across 3,000 merchants. The accolades followed: Hong Kong ICT Awards 2023 Award of the Year, the Mastercard Award at FINOPITCH Tokyo 2024, Tatler's Gen.T Leaders of Tomorrow list.

‍

But timing proved brutal. Wang launched after COVID lockdowns, expecting Hong Kong's retail economy to rebound. It never did. Spending shifted to Shenzhen and overseas destinations. The travel economy boomed while local retail languished.

‍

"There are definitely days where you're like, I should have listened to my Asian parents and stayed in that job that pays me a good salary," Wang admits.

‍

👏 Dive deeper into this conversation and many others with innovative founders on the Unsensible Podcast:

‍

At Singapore's Fintech Festival in late 2024, Wang met Joe, CEO of HeyMax. Both were University of Michigan alumni. Both were miles junkies. Both believed loyalty was heading toward open systems where customers controlled their rewards.

‍

Partnership conversations evolved quickly into acquisition talks. HeyMax had technical depth: four ex-Meta engineers. Krip had market knowledge for expanding into Hong Kong, a key Asian financial hub. HeyMax's Max Miles currency could transfer to over thirty airlines and hotel programs, offering flexibility single-carrier programs couldn't match.

‍

The deal closed in July 2025, marking HeyMax's first acquisition. Wang joined as Global Head of Loyalty Partnerships and General Manager of Hong Kong. Krip's brand was discontinued, with users transitioning to HeyMax.

‍

"It's really no different than getting married," Wang explains. "It's a professional marriage. You don't go into marriage lightly, you need foundational trust, value alignment, mission alignment."

‍

He's candid about Krip's limitations: "One of our shortcomings was technical execution. The HeyMax team is absolutely exceptional from a technical standpoint." Now he can focus on what he does best, building the partner relationships that make open loyalty work.

‍

Wang believes marketing budgets will shift dramatically toward open loyalty systems over the next decade. Insurance companies, e-wallets, banks, and retailers are already adopting MaxMiles because it's more efficient than building proprietary programs or cutting margins with discounts.

‍

"When there's more information, it actually puts the power in the hands of the customers," Wang says. In open loyalty, the customer becomes the core audience, not an afterthought.

‍