A billionaire technology entrepreneur who is only 34 years old has shared his secrets to success.
Ankur Jain, CEO and founder of Bilt Rewards, has an estimated net worth of $1.2 billion, according to Forbes.
Bilt allows Americans to earn points on rent, which they can spend 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 purchasing a home.
Since its public launch in 2022, Bilt has seen a stratospheric rise and is now valued at $3.25 billion.
Jain, who was previously an executive at dating app Tinder, owns about 36 percent of the company.
His only advice for any budding entrepreneur?
“Start with a problem, not a perceived opportunity,” Jain told DailyMail.com. “Those are two very different things.”
Technology entrepreneur Ankur Jain, a billionaire at only 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 entrepreneurship,” he said.
These graduates focused too much on complicated business statistics or what they saw as a market opportunity, rather than thinking about what Americans really need.
“They forgot to ask what problem they can actually solve for people,” Jain said.
‘There’s a reason Bilt is easy to understand. You can earn points with rentals. It’s your biggest expense and now it’s your biggest reward.
“You’re taking a real problem that people have and making it work.”
The idea behind Bilt is that it allows Americans to earn points for renting without having to pay any transaction fees.
The company has now signed up 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 their partners, which include airlines like United or hotel chains like Hilton or Hyatt.
Jain, who was born in Washington state and married former WWE star turned fitness guru Erika Hammond in Egypt earlier this year, previously co-founded Humin, an app that combined contacts and calendars and was purchased 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 largest US Internet companies before the collapse of the dot-com bubble in the early 2000s.
Jain married former WWE star turned 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 Bilt Rewards private launch event in New York City in 2022
If Americans don’t live at a Bilt-associated property, they can earn points for renting with a co-branded Mastercard credit card.
By tracking rent payments each month, Bilt is also designed to help improve its members’ credit history, with the goal of eventually helping them qualify for a mortgage.
“Whether you’re paying rent or you’re finally ready to buy a home, we want to make it happen and we want it to be rewarding,” Jain told DailyMail.com.
Bilt also has a co-branded Mastercard credit card, which allows Americans to earn points on rentals if they don’t live at a partner property.
The credit card has no annual fee, but it also has no sign-up bonus.
Users must also commit to using the card five times a month (in addition to paying rent) to get 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 can still pay rent through the Bilt app.
However, they will only earn 250 points for doing so and will still have to pay the processing fee.
As part of the new expansion launched this week, the company also launched a “home shopping” tool that allows renters to see what type of house they could afford based on how much they currently pay per month.
The tool displays available homes based on a total monthly payment, which includes local taxes and insurance costs, and allows Americans to search for available homes in different cities.