Opinion
Jain: Founders should avoid early VC because partners lack operational understanding
“I think entrepreneurs should do everything in their power to not allow venture capitalists to come into their business. VCs don't generally understand how to run a business. They generally don't understand what your business needs are, and their incentives are…”
Assertion Partly supported
Ankur Jain: Airlines and hotels make their money from loyalty programs, not core operations
“Airlines and hotels, I know you did a show on this, make all their money on the loyalty program and their credit card programs, not on being an airline and hotel... Delta, United, and American only exist because they make money on loyalty programs.”
Assertion Supported
Jain: Major airline market caps are lower than standalone loyalty programs
“When you combine the card business and the loyalty business with their airline business is worth less because the airline business loses so much money that the overall company Is worth less than the actual loyalty program in bank business.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Apr 2033
Ankur Jain: Commercial Moon mining and transport will occur in 5-10 years
“Now what we're doing with Moon Express is saying, how do you create the last mile solution to get, you know, whether it's satellites positioned or whether it's, you know, going to the moon and actually mining the moon for, you know, helium three or platinum an…”
Insight
Jain: Starting a company with a business plan sets founders up for failure
“I think one of the biggest problems with business school is it loves to tell people to set a business plan with objectives and goals. And like you have, the second you start with that, you have set yourself up for failure.”
Opinion
Jain: Silicon Valley Has Damaged Its Goodwill and Trust With Regulators
“Silicon Valley has not done itself any favors in building goodwill and trust with the regulators.”
Assertion Contradicted
Jain: HUD reversed its denial to let Bilt points fund down payments
“Later that day, I got an updated letter from HUD. That said, dear Mr. Jane, you're pleased to inform that your use case requested is approved, and that was that.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Jain: Bilt has had profitable unit economics from day one
“We have unit economics that are profitable from day one, right? So we can make money and not need capital.”
Disclosure
Jain: Bilt is rolling out full payment collection to lock in distribution
“So it's like right now we are rolling out a payment solution for every apartment building to collect all rent payments through built. So whether you pay by check or ACH or credit card or the built card, we collect a hundred percent of payments. That is my numb…”
Insight
Jain: Keeping cards close to the chest is the worst negotiation tactic
“You see this classic mistake all the time, where people think they need to keep their cards close to their chest and, like, play it coy. Like, that is the worst way to do a deal. Because the truth is that, 99% of the time, there are two or three things that ma…”
Insight
Jain: Non-technical founders must aggressively question and push back on engineering timelines
“Most of technology and coding is just logic. By definition, code is a logical structured system. And so asking questions and not accepting the, it just takes three weeks, or it's not possible, or the systems don't allow you to do like the number of times you'v…”
Assertion Supported
Jain: Reporting rent payments boosts an average credit score by 60 points
“The average person can increase their credit score by 60 points just by reporting their rent payments, right?”
Assertion Partly supported
Jain: Regulators Approved Using Rental History and Points for Mortgages
“We actually got the government, the regulators to work with us to allow your rental payment history To help you qualify for a mortgage and to use points for the first time ever is down payment assistance.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Jain: Rhino has returned $2 billion in security deposits to renters
“We've, you know, my partner Parag is the CEO of the business, but you know, we've given back two billion dollars to renters.”
Insight
Ankur Jain: Innovation comes from applying models across industries, not thinking outside the box
“People love to use that phrase, think outside the box. Like, I hate that concept because thinking outside the box implies that you're just smarter than everybody else at that specific space. That is almost never what drives innovation. It's almost always that …”
Assertion Supported
Jain: Bilt Partner Network Reaches 3 Million Apartments
“There are people who live in one of our three million apartments today, but there are a lot of people who don't. And if we, if for those people to have a solution, which is to use the built credit card, you can pay rent at any apartment building in the country…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bilt reached over $5B in annualized rent processing within 12 months
“We've gone in just that 12 months to processing over five billion dollars of rent annually alone.”
Disclosure
Jain: Bilt raised exclusively from landlords, banks, and Mastercard
“The reason we raised money was to create aligned long-term incentives with all of our partners. And so all of the money we raised was from real estate owners, the banks that we work with, Wells Fargo, Mastercar, the payment networks, And that was it.”
Assertion Partly supported
Jain: Average residential rent in New York City is $5,000 monthly
“In New York city now, the average rent is 5000 dollars a month.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Jain: Bilt has penetrated only 600,000 of 43M US rental households
“There are forty three million rental households just in the United States, much less any other part of the world. And we've only launched 600,000 of those today.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Jain: Bilt raised $190M total and operates profitably
“We've raised, we just did a hundred and fifty million dollar round. Before that we had done forty million, but the business has been profitable.”
Disclosure
Jain: Bilt spent six months negotiating the wrong angle with Wells Fargo
“We spent so much time in the first six months talking about a credit card program with them, which was, like, totally the wrong conversation.”
Ankur Jain