00:00Hi everybody, I'm Brittany Lewis. We are here at the Under 30 Summit in Cincinnati, Ohio,
00:09and I am here with Built Rewards founder and CEO, Ankur Jain. Ankur, thanks for joining
00:14me. Thanks for having me. For the uninitiated, tell us what Built Rewards is. Okay, if you
00:18pay rent and you are not getting anything back, you should sign up for Built. We are
00:24the first loyalty program that gives you points and miles on your rent payments and benefits
00:28in your neighborhood. Over a decade ago, in an interview, you said that traditional
00:33pathways... You're looking at a decade ago. I was. Hey, and I found something. I found
00:37a tidbit in there. This is where to get you. This is where I got you. Gotcha. No, just
00:40kidding. It's not a gotcha. It's inside. You said something insightful. You said traditional
00:44pathways for college students are no longer. Do you feel the same way for renters? Look,
00:49I think the part of the challenge that we're all dealing with as a country right now is
00:53that what should be the American dream of opportunity for everybody is just becoming
00:57harder, right? Everything's possible, but it's becoming harder. And with so many things
01:02to worry about, the key philosophy that we're trying to solve for is, can you just do the
01:08things you're already doing and make it work for the customer? If you're paying your rent,
01:13it should build your credit, right? If you're paying your rent, you should have a path to
01:17homeownership. These are like these types of things that we took for granted in our
01:20grandparents' generation that are harder and harder for us. Homeownership was the American
01:25dream back in the day. Two kids, a house, a picket fence, and now you're building rewards
01:31here for rent. Is this making the pathway to homeownership easier for people? I mean,
01:36our goal is to make it so that everyone has an opportunity, but whether or not it's the
01:39right thing as the American dream for consumers is now different. And so for a lot of people,
01:44renting is better, right? You have flexibility. You have somebody to fix your leaks in your
01:48building when there's issues. You don't have to deal with all the issues that come with
01:51homeownership. But for many others, homeownership is a huge thing. And so with our rewards program,
01:57you earn points and miles on rent. You could use that to buy a trip to go see your friends
02:02for spring break, to go see your family over the holidays, or save them up and help users
02:06to qualify for a home mortgage. And I think that key is the opportunity for more Americans
02:12to get more for what they're spending on. What do you think is missing then from the
02:15national conversation when it comes to the rental industry, when it comes to the stressors,
02:19especially financial ones facing renters?
02:21I mean, this is my biggest pet peeve. I'm so sick of politicians trying to spin inflation
02:26as, oh, but it's slowing. It's getting better. It's like people forget slowing inflation
02:32just means it's getting more expensive, less quickly. The drinks that I'm buying are still
02:37like, you know, double the price that they were four years ago. And you have to acknowledge
02:42that on both sides to even have a conversation on how to give economic freedom back.
02:47And what's next in this journey, this quest to get people to have that economic freedom?
02:53Well, there's a lot.
02:55But specifically for you and Bill.
02:57Look, I think we set this out in 2017. I wrote this paper on housing costs, health care costs,
03:04student debt, right? These are some of the biggest pain points facing our generation.
03:08And so we're starting off by trying to make housing a little bit more rewarding. We can't
03:12fix everything, but we can at least take your rental pricing and your payments every month
03:16and make it work for you. Recently, we launched our first health care program where at neighborhood
03:21pharmacies we can automatically help consumers save money with their FSA or HSA programs
03:27without having to change their behavior. So that means billions of dollars that are lost
03:31every year on things like sunscreen or, you know, your prescriptions can now you can save
03:37up to 40 percent automatically just by being a BILT member.
03:41Encore Jane, thank you for joining me.
03:42Thank you for having me.
Comments