By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2024-11-24 17:01:48 | Updated at 2024-11-24 19:52:06
3 hours ago
A tech entrepreneur who is a billionaire at just 34 years old has shared his secrets to success.
Ankur Jain, the CEO and founder of Bilt Rewards, has an estimated net worth of $1.2 billion, according to Forbes.
Bilt allows Americans to earn points through paying rent, which can be spent on travel, dining or fitness classes - much like a traditional credit card rewards program.
This week, the company also expanded its reach to allow customers to earn rewards points when buying a home.
Since publicly launching in 2022, Bilt has seen a stratospheric rise - and is now valued at $3.25 billion.
Jain, who was formerly an exec at dating app Tinder, owns about 36 percent of the company.
His one piece of advice for any budding entrepreneurs?
'Start with a problem, not a perceived opportunity,' Jain told DailyMail.com. 'Those are two very different things.'
Tech entrepreneur Ankur Jain, who is a billionaire at just 34 years old, has shared his secrets to success
'I think one of the most dangerous things that happened to entrepreneurship was that business school graduates started going into entrepreneurship,' he said.
These grads focused too much on complicated business statistics or what they saw as a market opportunity, rather than thinking about what Americans actually need.
'They forgot to ask the question of what problem they can actually solve for people,' Jain said.
'There's a reason Bilt is easy to understand. You can earn points on rent. It's your biggest expense and now it's your most rewarding.
'You're taking a real problem people have and you're making it work.'
The idea behind Bilt is that it allows Americans to earn points on rent without having to pay any transaction fees.
The company has now signed up up property owners with 4 million rentals in thousands of cities across the country, as well as its airline, hotel, gym and restaurant partners.
Members can transfer points to its partners, which include airlines such as United, or hotel chains such as Hilton or Hyatt.
Jain, who was born in Washington state and married former WWE star-turned-celebrity fitness guru Erika Hammond in Egypt earlier this year, previously co-founded Humin, an app which combined contacts and calendars and was bought by Tinder.
He also made the coveted Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2015.
His father, former Microsoft executive Naveen Jain, was also briefly a billionaire in 2000 due to the success of his company InfoSpace.
The search engine was one of the biggest internet companies in the US before the crash of the dot-com bubble in the early noughties.
Jain married former WWE star-turned-celebrity fitness guru Erika Hammond in Egypt earlier this year
Jain, pictured on his wedding day with his wife Erika, has an estimated net worth of $1.2 billion, according to Forbes
Wyclef Jean, Ankur Jain, New York City Mayor Eric Adams and guest at the Bilt Rewards Private Launch event in New York City in 2022
If Americans do not live in a Bilt partner property, they can earn points on rent with a co-branded Mastercard credit card
By tracking rent payments every month, Bilt is also designed to help boost its members credit histories, in order to help them eventually qualify for a mortgage.
'Whether you're paying rent or you're finally ready to buy a home, we want to make it possible and we want to make it rewarding,' Jain told DailyMail.com.
Bilt also has a co-branded Mastercard credit card, which allows Americans to earn points on rent if they do not live in a partner property.
The credit card has no annual fee, but it also has no sign-up bonus.
Users also have to commit to using the card five times every month - on top of the rent payment - to derive significant value from it, according to NerdWallet.
If renters do not live in a Bilt-affiliated property and do not have the credit card, they are still able to pay rent through the Bilt app.
They will only earn 250 points for doing so, however, and will still owe the processing fee.
Under the new expansion launched this week, the company has also launched a 'buy a home' tool which allows renters to see what kind of home they could afford based on how much they are currently paying a month.
The tool shows available homes based on an all-in monthly payment - which includes local taxes and insurance costs - and allows Americans to search available homes across different cities.
