Mickelle: Rohit Nadhani is the founder of Kubera, an automated software solution for global investment and asset tracking that was built with international life in mind. Kubera is incredibly useful if you have assets or bank accounts, crypto, domain names, homes or shares, and more.
Mickelle: and currency in different countries. While not a budgeting software, it lets you see an entire picture of your worldwide assets and forecast your net worth and keep track of disparate pockets of investments around the world, helping you to make decisions and keep a global perspective to where you are keeping the value you create.
Mickelle: No matter where you are in the world. I wanted to talk with Rohit and bring Kubera into the awareness of our community, because as an international person, there’s very rarely software that addresses the needs of living in more than one place. This can be a hassle and also exhausting. So when I began using Kubera, I really felt like I needed to share it with all of you.
Mickelle: In this episode, we talked about Rohit’s experience living and working between India and the U. S. His story of almost being killed by a riptide while surfing, which inspired Kubera’s Deadman Switch, which allows you to give access to all of your accounts upon your death, and how we all measure our financial successes in the currency of our country of origin, no matter how long we live away.
Mickelle: And Rohit’s approach to co founding his fourth company, Kubera, and how they approach privacy and keep your data safe. Kubera is generously offering House of Peregrine members a free year subscription to Kubera. Simply log into your House of Peregrine account, and you will find the instructions about how to claim this.
Mickelle: This is a limited time offer, so act quickly. At the time of release, if you claim all of your rewards available to you as a House of Peregrine member, your membership is free. To check current offers, log into your Hop account and claim your rewards. Finally, what I am sad I didn’t ask Rohit about is his CryptoPunk, that serves as his LinkedIn biopic.
Mickelle: So I will save that for our next interview. I love this conversation and hope you find it useful. If you enjoy this podcast, please feel free to share with a friend. This is the best way you can help get the word out about House of Peregrine and our mission to connect people living internationally more deeply with themselves and the world, each other and the place they currently call home.
Mickelle: If you want to know more about memberships for yourself or for your business, please head to our website, house of Peregrine. com. Our memberships give you access to the entire House of Peregrine ecosystem, which is full of amazing people, amazing events, collaborations, and also exclusive products and services. All of which will make your life as an international full of connection, luxury, and personal growth. Okay. On to today’s episode.
Mickelle: Thank you so much for joining us today, Rohit. I really appreciate it. I’m really excited to bring our listeners into this, uh, world of worldwide financial, um, being able to see exactly what they have around the world.
Rohit: Thanks for having me.
Mickelle: Yeah. So, Why don’t you start out by introducing us to you and to Kubera.
Rohit: So my name is Rohit Nadhani. I live in California. I am a software entrepreneur. I’ve done multiple companies, both in B2B and B2C. B2B means selling to businesses and also consumer applications. Uh, Kubera is, I think, my fourth company.
Rohit: And here we are.
Mickelle: Here you are. So you’re a multiple, you’ve done this multiple times and would you consider them all startups from scratch? Is that from the beginning?
Rohit: Yes. All startups and a little bit different than a typical Silicon Valley startups, although I live in Silicon Valley, all of them are bootstrapped.
Mickelle: I can identify with that for sure. So tell me, uh, The story of Kubera, what made you, I have a feeling you made this because you had a very personal reason.
Rohit: Yes, of course. So in 2018, I sold two of my startups and then I was taking some time off. And for the first time in my life, I really had like liquid wealth in my life.
Rohit: Before that, all my wealth was stuck in the private shares of my companies. And so I had liquidity event. And then I started diversifying. Uh, you know, I, I started getting into stock bonds and real estate, but also like crypto private equity.
Mickelle: So I want to stop, I just want to stop you right there really quick and just to bring our listeners up to speed. So when you’re a startup founder, a lot of your wealth goes into the startup or in your case startups that you are participating in. And when they sell, you suddenly make that from potential.
Mickelle: value to actual liquid value in the form of cash usually. And so you, for the first time, had this kind of thing that you had to manage. Do I have that right?
Rohit: Yes. So when you start a startup, uh, you know, you, your shares are illiquid unless you kind of go and, you know, do an IPO or sell it to the public or have it what they call a secondary sell sale, where you can also sell it to VCs who invest in your company.
Rohit: So my, all my, all my wealth were like stuck in the private shares of my startups. Uh, so for the first time I got paid for those shares and I have all this liquid wealth and now I start diversifying for the first time in my life. And so, you know, I spread my wealth across many assets, got interested in crypto and fintech and all these things.
Rohit: So started playing with all these tools there are out there and slowly, uh, started getting stressed out. And then in a random event, you know, I was, uh, you know, I was on a beach in Costa Rica and I was caught in a riptide and then I had to be rescued. And as I was getting rescued, uh, it dawned upon me that there is some assets, like especially crypto, that if I die right now, it’s going to be lost from the family forever.
Rohit: So with that event, plus my inspection getting complicated, you know, give me the idea that I should build something, uh, which is very easy to use, which is software entrepreneur like. Me loves using every day and just have like a personal balance sheet
Mickelle: and we’re going to get to the dead man switch soon, but I want to say one more thing about what I think might have made you create Kubera the way you have, and I have a feeling that you have a story of moving from country to country as well because of how it’s built.
Mickelle: I could tell that immediately. But why don’t you tell us the story?
Rohit: Yeah, for sure. Um, uh, you have hit the nail right on the head. So I’m, I’m an immigrant. I moved to America 10 years ago. So I’m originally from India. So I also have got assets in India. I have bank accounts in India. I have brokerage, uh, in India.
Rohit: And, uh, most importantly, so multi currency and having assets across the globe was something very natural to me. Like if I wanted to build a product, it had to have multi currency at the core. And that was one of the reasons I had to build Kubera because a lot of personal finance tools here in the United States assume that you have never lived outside the United States.
Rohit: You know, you’re like, you live in the world of. US dollar dominance.
Mickelle: Most software assumes that, which as an international person is really annoying.
Rohit: Yeah, absolutely. So not only you, I have assets spread across the world, but also my dreams and aspirations are also like tethered in the, in the currency I grew up, you know, when I, when I was a child, okay, I’m going to become whatever a millionaire or gazillionaire.
Rohit: But I was always dreaming in the local currency of that country. So even now, I have lived in America, you know, for 10 years, I always go back to look at my net worth in Indian rupees. Like that’s how, you know, that’s what my dream is from childhood. Like I’m going to get to this net worth in crores, you know, which is like a typical.
Rohit: You need to that Indians use to kind of check their network.
Mickelle: I’m sorry to interrupt you, but that is such an interesting idea. We talk a lot on this podcast about how language is inherent, how, how culture is inherent, but you’re also bringing up this really interesting point that money and currency is somehow embedded in your.
Mickelle: in yourself. And so that’s really interesting. And so you wanted to see what your, what your worth and your net worth was in your own currency, which makes so much sense and such a beautiful notion. So I’m sorry to stop you, but I just had to point that out. That’s really, really fun.
Rohit: Yeah. I think that’s an important part because yeah, you, I’m spending most of mine.
Rohit: Money in United States dollars, but my, my dreams and aspirations are still tethered to like Indian rupees. So once in a while, I’ll go and check, although it does not have a lot of practical value, but it has a lot of emotional value for me.
Mickelle: That is so important. And thank you for telling that that’s, that’s really beautiful.
Mickelle: So you. We’re keeping track of everything in a spreadsheet, and it was getting complicated. I really think that’s the start of most great software stories in our day and age. Um, and you almost were killed by a riptide. Those two, the convergence of those two things and being an immigrant to another country, this is a great story.
Mickelle: So tell me,
Rohit: So I wanted this spreadsheet to be online. At the same time, I was getting pitched by wealth managers. You know, they wanted to manage my money. And after interviewing a few of them, I realized that Okay. Some of them are smart wealth managers. Some of them are not so smart with managers, but a hundred percent of the time that the two they’re throwing at me, it’s like very arcane, it’s like created to serve them, but not to serve me.
Rohit: Uh, and I am, I’m living in the world where I like. Really like real time modern software. I like, you know, air table notion, superhuman, you know, Figma, all these are very beautifully designed software. And I don’t want to use something, uh, you know, that has been thrown on my face by a wealth manager that was like really created for the 1990s.
Rohit: Uh, so that got me thinking like, you know, I’m going to. I just stopped using their tool and get back to spreadsheet. Uh, and so what’s the point? And that got me thinking, no, I have to really start this company. And I looked around, there were some, uh, tools, uh, you know, which are available like personal capital and mint.
Rohit: Uh, but they were primarily designed for people at a phase of life where they obsess about budgets and, and expense management and things like that. Fortunately, I was at a point in time where I, I need a peripheral view of my budgets and expenses, but I just need to manage my assets. Like if I manage my assets, the expenses will take care of it.
Rohit: Uh, so I thought like, uh, let me focus building a tool that. Manages assets and everything else is, you know, like a life personal balance sheet and everything else can go from there.
Mickelle: Yeah. And that’s a really beautiful notion. And for me, at least, I use two different software, but I use Kubera. And when I found, I, when I found your company, I felt so happy because there isn’t a lot of awareness in this market around people living between multiple currencies, countries, investment portfolios.
Mickelle: So like my early career was in investing in real estate and in software companies. And so those two things don’t go together. And then if you add crypto in there, it really doesn’t go together. And so, um, when I found what you were doing and that it plugged into so many different kinds of assets, just to be able to know where you are in time and space as an international person with your long term goals, while you’re sorting out your local situation, whatever that may be, I think is really important.
Mickelle: Even if you aren’t just managing your assets. I find it to be such a great forecasting tool. Um, and also just a planning tool, because as we know, and you know, when you live internationally, you are sometimes making big decisions and you really need this kind of tool to be able to see. And I really love the charts you guys give and the forecasting you give.
Mickelle: Um, but I think what at the heart of it that I really enjoy is this idea of Acknowledgement that you are a worldwide citizen and you are dealing in multiple asset classes and different currencies at the same time. And so I, I, I have to say that was what I loved about it, but tell me how it was for you and your partners.
Mickelle: I’m assuming you’re building it with co founders or is it just you?
Rohit: I have two co founders.
Mickelle: Oh, nice. And are they also international people?
Rohit: Yes, one of them is based out of Australia and one of them is India. So it’s just, uh, being international is like the core DNA of the company. Remote first international, uh, assets in multiple countries.
Rohit: Like we don’t think about it. It’s just like, It’s just what is given to us from day one.
Mickelle: Yeah. And have you always, not to go back to, I want to hear a little bit, were you always this way? Did you always think, no, you would be kind of a more of a worldwide citizen? You say immigrant, which is also, we, we use all these words at House of Peregrine, but, um, did you always know that you would be like that?
Mickelle: Or when did you know that you would be living this life?
Rohit: I think I was a software engineer and I always have. This deep connection with Silicon Valley and California in general, because, uh, you know, I, I had all my heroes and idols in California, which was like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs when I was growing up.
Rohit: And so for me, for me, uh, someday, you know, moving to California and getting an opportunity to start a company from there was always my dream. So I think around After I graduated and I did my first startup in India, it was I was looking to move to California, given an opportunity. And then I started a software company in India, but which primarily sold to us customers, like, like how the software industry is across the world, apart from China, if you build a good, if you build good software.
Rohit: You know, us is your number one country to go and sell there. And then, you know, the rest of the Western world and now India and other places are also, uh, buying software. But when I, so, but at that point of time, us was the primary market for software. So I was building, building in India, but selling to us customers.
Rohit: So I used to travel to California frequently. And then one day we simply decided why not start living there and see how it goes. And we continued for the next 10 years. Yeah.
Mickelle: Wow. So you’re living the dream, you’re living in the country that suits you, um, and you’re building companies, and then it sounds like you sold a couple of them and came into this new problem.
Mickelle: Um, and so that fits with what I feel when I use your software, which is really cool. Um, but when you were building this out, did you have a certain, are you building for yourself or who, who are your ideal. Who do you imagine using your software when you’re building it?
Rohit: Yeah, so that’s an interesting question when we started building it.
Rohit: I thought and and many people asked me. Oh is I never I will never use scobera because I don’t have that much of wealth and that kind of intrigued me I said, I think those old days are gone where you need, uh, wealth because, you know, a few years ago, all you had was like a home, some stocks and some like bonds or something like that.
Rohit: But now every young individual is. It’s like dabbling with a lot of assets, trying new fintech apps, you know, trying like some people have, you know, 50, 000 in Coinbase, you know, they’re trying Revenue. They are trying all these new apps, some money in Vanguard, Robinhood. So I think the quantum of wealth is not the only metric when you should use Kubera.
Rohit: Yeah. If you’ve got scattered assets, if you’re like a young upcoming guy. Or a girl who wants to try with these new asset classes, even you don’t have a lot of wealth, but if the assets are scattered and it gives, gives you anxiety, then you should try Kubera. And, um, and money is such a thing that, for example, you try this new FinTech app and you kind of whatever wired 500 into this app.
Rohit: And the moment, You feel that you are not keeping track of these 500, although this could be a small amount for you. It starts giving you anxiety. You know, you feel like a sloppy and, and, you know, lazy that, okay, you have money scattered in all those, uh, pigeonholes and you don’t have a unified view. So, so we have like wealthy people who have all these assets.
Rohit: But we also have, uh, young people who are trying a lot of, who are experimenting with a lot of asset class and working hard to get, uh, get better returns. And, and then, uh, you know, putting money in all these different pockets and they need a unified view. Um, and, uh, so that’s, that’s one thing. And another category is where we, Kubera forces you to think long term.
Rohit: Uh, you know, even if you are an old person, young person, uh, if you’re invested in the stock market and all of us know stock market is so volatile, uh, Kubera prevents you to me from making knee jerk reactions. You know, the stock market is down by 5 percent and you are like suddenly, uh, you know, you’re, you’re panicking and Kubera will tell you no.
Rohit: You know, over the last two years, you have been doing pretty good. Actually, you have been beating SMP 500. Uh, so don’t get, uh, you know, don’t get fearful of this 5 percent drawdown. You are doing okay. And I think a lot of people have told us and, uh, that Kubera has been, uh, has Kubera has influenced behavioral changes and then, so, so these are the type of people who find Kubera most useful.
Rohit: Either you have a lot of wealth or you have scattered wealth.
Mickelle: And both are really important. And what I noticed as well is you’re, you’re acknowledging other kinds of value, which I really loved that it’s not really there yet in other places. So I think if I’m not mistaken, you can track like, even if you have domain names.
Mickelle: if you, you know, these are, these are again, things of wealth that people haven’t acknowledged in the financial sectors necessarily, but they do paint a picture of how you are spreading your energy or like things you’re trying, like you said. Um, and so I think that that it’s an, again, an acknowledgement of this new way of thinking or a more extended way of thinking about value, which I think is really important.
Mickelle: Um, and also refreshing to see. Um, the other thing that I really enjoyed was that I didn’t have to have two different programs for two different countries. So my European bank was easily imported and my us bank was easily imported. Um, and it was just like, no problem like that. It was just like, yeah, we natively do this where if you’re an international person and I don’t have to explain this to you, but to our listeners, they all are like, is it me?
Mickelle: Or is it the system is not built for me? And the answer is the system is not built for you. Um, and so we’re all kind of accustomed to this extra step or five to get anything hooked up because you’re just, you just don’t fit the mold of software, of banking. And so this was a really beautiful acknowledgement of the, like, like your existence as an international person isn’t a problem.
Mickelle: Yes. Um, and so, And for me, it was a breath of fresh air because when I’m using things, I have to decide, am I a U. S. person or am I a European person? What do I, which, which phone number do I sign in with, which, you know, Google account, where is it registered? Like, all of these things. All of these things.
Mickelle: They’re small, but they just add up. And so when I used your software, you could tell you had been through this. And I think that that’s really the way, the way of the future. But also, as you said, it helps you to plan, which is something we all need more than anything, because there’s not really precedence for living this way, um, and doing it in this way.
Mickelle: And so, yeah, congratulations, I guess, is that, so that’s why I wanted to have you on. So tell me, I want to back up a little bit. So which part. of India. Are you from, and then did you plan on staying in the US long term? Tell us your story about that.
Rohit: Yeah, I grew up in Kolkata, which is the eastern part of India.
Rohit: Uh, and then I moved to, uh, for, for career and to make, uh, to become a software engineer, I moved to Bangalore, which is really the Silicon Valley of India. And I, um, and I took up a job there for five years. And then I started my first startup, uh, in Bangalore, which was, which was enterprise software selling to us customers.
Rohit: And that’s how I started traveling to us. And that’s how, um, I thought, yeah, maybe I should try living there for, for some time before my kids, uh, you know, grow up or, or something like that. And we thought, and we had all these luxuries and, and you know, everything was set in India, Bangalore, uh. And we didn’t want to move, but we said, okay, we’ll try for, you know, we are going to get, you know, it’s, we are going to get uprooted, move away from the family and things like that.
Rohit: We said, we are going to try for one year. What, what could be worse? Like, so I kept my apartment, uh, uh, but, but after landing here, California is such like a special place and it’s like so welcoming and I never felt like I was in a foreign land. And, uh, And it was just like the fact that I am into tech and software made it even more natural for me to, uh, continue living here.
Rohit: And here we are now, uh, 10 years, maybe I’ll go back to India one day when I’m done with tech and software, you know, and all of that. But, uh, it’s a good place, uh, for tech software. Um, it’s a good place for kids to grow up as well.
Mickelle: Yeah. Hilariously. That’s what we said when we moved to Amsterdam. We’ll go for one year.
Mickelle: What could go wrong? And now it’s been seven. So it’s, it happens when you do this. Um, yeah, that’s so interesting. And how has being in software, I feel like there’s two types and I know this from my investing days and being part of startups, there’s usually the type of people that think more in a worldwide market and those who think for us.
Mickelle: And I think that it’s. You know, it’s, it’s a huge market. I understand the U S is a huge market. One language. You don’t have to do any type of translating or regulatory things or anything, but you don’t know, unless you live away, that it’s, really limiting. And so have you noticed that as well? And like, I feel like that’s a huge advantage for you guys in having that point of view.
Mickelle: And in business in general, I think that’s a really great point of view, but have you noticed the same or am I just,
Rohit: No, of course. Uh, so I think traditionally people used to focus only in the, uh, On US market because the share of US market was higher and it was also easier, you know, you have to deal with one currency, you UI, uh, you know, you for, for us, I mean, it’s just sidetracking for us.
Rohit: If you just wanted to support us, engineering would have been engineering. The product would have been much easier. You just sign up to one aggregator that supports us and you are done. You know, just make sure that you hard code us dollars and just so much easier to engine engineer. Uh, but we said, um, uh, that the tides are turning and, and people are increasingly becoming global citizens.
Rohit: Uh, you know, Balaji has this entire thesis of like network states and things like that. So not only it makes more business sense now to kind of have kind of a global product because the rest of the world is growing and in fact, growing faster, you know, so, uh, maybe still they are not, uh, maybe you’re still needs either.
Rohit: single highest country in terms of software sales, but the international like business outside us is growing. So there was business reasons. And since we are building software for, for ourselves, you know, I mean, why would I build software that I am not happy using it every day? So, uh, but at the same time, if there were, I mean, is this, because at the end of the day, I’m also trying to build a business.
Rohit: So if building for the rest of the world didn’t make business sense, I wouldn’t have built it. Now it’s a software that I love using every day and it makes business sense. So,
Mickelle: uh,
Rohit: the timing was sweet from, from that point of view.
Mickelle: Nice. And, um, so. I want to talk about, a little bit about the process of using, of using Kubera.
Mickelle: Tell us about the dead man switch. We have to talk about it. It’s unique and beautiful and a software solution to what many of us have written up legally. So can you tell us about it? It sounds like there’s a good story to begin with.
Rohit: Yeah, so there are two, I would say there are multiple reasons to use Kubera.
Rohit: So one is. One of the primary reasons is that you keep your, keep a live balance sheet. So you have your network, you’re actively tracking it and, and you don’t panic when there is volatility. And the second reason why many people use Kubera is a single place for all your assets. If something happens to you.
Rohit: And now this is a very tricky situation. Like why would you need a dead man’s switch? You know, like why can’t you just write it on a piece of paper and hand it to someone? The thing with money is it’s a little tricky. You don’t want to disclose all the information to everyone before the event happens because it can get tricky.
Rohit: Things can get complicated. You don’t want to share with, with your friends, your parents, what exactly do you own? You don’t want to be judged. You don’t want other people to get put you in awkward situation, like things like You know, you have so much money. Why don’t you write like a 10, 000 loan to me?
Rohit: You know, you, you know, it will just put you on an awkward situation. And after you have had this conversation, it always goes downwards. Even if you give the loan, you know, it’s a bad, it’s a tricky situation. If you don’t give the loan, it’s a tricky situation. So money is that thing. Like at the same time, if something happens to you, you don’t want to lose that wealth.
Rohit: You know, you want someone to take care of it. If you have small kids, you know, it has to be transferred. Or if, if you don’t have any kids, if someone should like take control of the situation. So dead man’s switch allows you to ensure that all your information, financial information. Transfers to the right, we call it beneficiary only if something bad happens to you.
Rohit: So you put all this data in Kubera and if you don’t log in for a specific number of days, we’ll try to warn you. We said, Hey, you know, are you alive? Like click on that link. Are you okay? And for example, the default is set to 45 days. If you don’t log into Cobera after 45 days, we’ll try to, the system will try to contact you.
Rohit: Otherwise, it will kind of export everything in an Excel sheet and send it to an email address or a phone number that you have specified in Cobera. So we call it share, but not just yet. Uh, you know, and it kind of gives you that peace of mind without getting into this awkward situation, that money and sharing your network and exactly what assets do you own, uh, you know, sharing this, you know, With your friends, family and parents, uh, it just prevents you from the getting into that awkward situation.
Mickelle: So not only do you have track of your disparate wealth or the disparate things you’re trying, but nothing will be lost because everyone who, if you happen to pass away unexpectedly, https: otter. ai They’ll know where to look at least. They’ll know that this exists under your name. They’ll be able to track it down.
Mickelle: It doesn’t give them access to the accounts necessarily because it’s read only, right? But they’ll know that they have to claim it from and change the account to the beneficiaries. Um, and I think anyone who’s ever dealt with, um, Someone in that way dealt with someone’s affairs after they passed away.
Mickelle: It’s a massive, massive favor you’re doing to anyone in that case because it is so hard to track down every piece of paper or spreadsheet or whatever that’s spread out. And so, do I have that right? It doesn’t give them permission, but it tells them where to look, basically.
Rohit: Yes, it’s it’s it does not give them any permission.
Rohit: We don’t, uh, it is not, uh, it does not trigger anything about transfer of points. Kubera is a read only interface on your, it’s, it’s like a, it’s like an Excel sheet, which is. beautifully maintained behind the scenes for you. So it just gives you a copy of the Excel sheet. Now, now having that information in a structured manner just gives you, gives you such a big advantage when, you know, when, when, for first of all, if you, If something happens to you, it’s already like a lot of stress and grief.
Rohit: On top of that, you don’t want to add another layer of stress that, okay, okay, are we going to lose some part of the wealth? And especially in today’s world, life is, was simple when you are, when you just had like a house and, and like a brokerage account. Now you could have like whatever crypto or Bitcoin that you paid for.
Rohit: that you bought like five years ago and it could be worth lots of money. You just don’t want to that to get lost forever. So having that information in a structured manner given to the what, whoever you choose at the right time. is so critical. It’s sort of critical for you and for them, for you as in terms of peace of mind and for them that it is not going to be lost forever.
Mickelle: And I think it’s unique in the market, like I don’t, I don’t see it anywhere else. This acknowledgement that someone is behind the scenes managing this, this, this. It’s mayhem. Like someone. And so if that person drops out, it’s often the people that rely on them that haven’t been doing that. And so I think it’s a really beautiful acknowledgement of that possibility so you can actually kind of keep that wealth.
Mickelle: And so I want to talk about next the way that this impacts international people the most. And so when we’re talking about, let’s say. Multiple currencies, multiple countries. It’s really nice when you guys have a, when you have a currency converter that converts it. And so we talked about everything being converted into the currency.
Mickelle: I almost said language cause it’s almost the same, the currency of your choice. And so that really helps make decisions across like when to. Like talk about a little bit how you use it in not daily life, but maybe quarterly or yearly to plan or to strategize how you move across countries with your decisions.
Mickelle: Like do I buy this or do I, yeah, just tell us if you have a story about that, that where it’s helpful. Cause I know it’s not a budgeting software, but I do think macro decisions can be made like more efficiently with this, this tool.
Rohit: Yeah, so I’ll give you one real example of how currency conversion, real time currency conversion helps.
Rohit: For example, when I was living in India, U. S., I think U. S. I don’t remember US Indian rupees was trading at, you know, like right now it’s like 83 rupees per US dollars. At that point of time, it was maybe 45 rupees, you know, so, so Indian currency has depreciated by say, I don’t know, 100%. Since the last 15 years or something like that, or last 10 years.
Rohit: So when, um, so as I was evaluating my investments, uh, I realized that an investment that I have done in India in INR was showing me very good IRR, which is, you know, internal rate of return, which is the rate of return that you calculate on your investments. Um, And I, then I, okay. So, and when you think about that investment in rupees, it was like very attractive.
Rohit: But then I realized that, you know, if I had like wired the same money in United States at that point of time, You know, I would have gotten a better overall return, even though the IRR was not that attractive on paper. Because guess what? The currency has devalued, devalued over a hundred percent in the, in the last, like not a hundred percent is not the right word, you know, whatever, you know, it has not gone to zero, but 44 rupees per US dollars has become 84 rupees per US dollar.
Rohit: So, uh, so even though the IRR gives a different picture for both these investments, actually, uh, you know, you would have done much better if you had made that investment in United States dollars at that point in time. So it kind of, uh, It kind of gives you, um, real returns across currencies, uh, uh, you know, and which can be very misleading where, where the inflation is high and currency devaluation is rampant, uh, for example, Turkey, you know, if you’ve invested something in Turkish Lira and it goes up by thousand percent.
Rohit: Who cares, you know, like most of the, most of your investment has lost value in terms of, in terms of USD, uh, or, or any other like stable currency. Uh, so things like that. And it’s all natural in Kubera. You don’t have to go to a financial advisor. Uh, you know, you don’t have to be a math wizard to kind of get all this information.
Rohit: That can, it can prevent you from making big investment mistakes.
Mickelle: And you don’t actually have to know what IRR is. You can just see it on the, on the projections. Um, and historically what it’s done. Um, and I think that’s a really good point. Um, maybe we can talk a little bit about living in one currency and being invested in another, because as you’re pointing out, when you’re living in one currency, your decisions are much different.
Mickelle: You can go with your gut a bit more. You can kind of feel the. What’s going on in the market. Um, but when you’re living, when you’re spending in one currency and maybe earning in another or living between two currencies, you actually kind of have to. Well, you don’t have to, but it’s maybe more wise to look at the hard numbers to make decisions.
Mickelle: Do I have that correct? Or maybe give us some insight there.
Rohit: Yeah, you should, uh, you should always look at your wealth in multiple currencies. If you are exposed to both currencies. You know, just having that knowledge, uh, because, okay, you bought a piece of real estate and, and again, the real estate price went up when you have to really understand like, okay, what do you want to, how do you want to measure your returns on investments?
Rohit: Do you want to do it in your single base currency, which is US dollar, or you want to do in that Okay. Currency, and maybe again as I do it, it might look like a very attractive investment in that currency, but does not help you because you’re gonna spend all your money in US dollars. So even though that looks like a very, you feel great about yourself, you know what a good investor, I’m like, whatever.
Rohit: I bought this property. It has like three since the time I bought. But in US Day. Spending, paying for rent, insurance, buying house in US dollars. It’s not that great of investments. And once you have that insight, you look at the world very differently.
Mickelle: And,
Rohit: and, and these are the kind of insights that even a financial advisor who are paying, whom you are paying 1%, 2%, 3 percent cannot give you because the financial or most financial advisors are not global citizens, either you’re going to find a great.
Rohit: financial advisor who’s based out of US, or you’re going to find a great financial advisor in your case, you know, in Amsterdam, and they are not going to appreciate this.
Mickelle: Those who are listening cannot see me nodding emphatically. You have to have two. So neither of them have the insight that you can gain over your, from yourself by having a spreadsheet.
Mickelle: And in this case, the projections that you have through Kubera and the information. And so I’m nodding because that is so true. And it’s a huge, It’s a huge gap and it’s a huge, um, it’s just extra work and you actually really do have to be responsible because there’s not, like you said, there’s very few people who specialize in this type of living.
Mickelle: And so I think this helps us become a little bit more empowered and be able to make good decisions. Um, and so when, so everyone’s going to go to your website. So tell us a little bit about what I’ll see there. So basically you have. Plans for Individuals. And then you have plans for Business. We’ll focus on the ones for Individuals.
Mickelle: Um, And so there’s basically you can join. What happens next? I join, I pay for a yearly, um, subscription and then I start importing my email. I go to my bank and I import. Why is this safe? Tell us why this is safe.
Rohit: Okay. Uh, so let’s, uh, let’s start, uh, when you, when you go to our website, you know, we’ll tell you why it’s useful to us.
Rohit: And some of that we have discussed in this podcast. And the most important thing is we make sure that you understand what kind of security we are talking about. So we make it very clear upfront that this is read only data. We don’t store your username and passwords. We don’t, we cannot do anything with your money.
Rohit: We always partner with aggregators who are owned by large companies like MasterCard and Visa, who. are bringing this data on our behalf, and they just hear the read only version of the data. So when you are connecting to a bank, for example, you know, using MasterCard, which is one of our aggregator. So MasterCard is, you know, going to the bank, collecting all that information and giving us the numbers, and we just do the number crunching.
Rohit: So first of all, we are very, very careful about security, make sure this all read only, we actively discourage you from using Cubera to store your passwords. Cubera is not the right tool to store your password. You know, it is just like a spreadsheet. It’s a number crunching tool. Second, the business model is designed in such a way that we don’t need to look at your data to make this a really big company or a large company.
Rohit: You know, millions of dollars of revenue, others, businesses who have attended something similar, their business model is dependent on the fact that they need to do a lot about your data for them to be successful. For example, you know, one of the companies that was popular was personal capital, personal capital gives away the software for free, but they are really a wealth management business.
Rohit: You know, so, so the software is kind of a lead generation too. So once you put everything, whatever it’s software, humans, they are looking at your data and they’re going to call you, Hey, whatever, you know, can I manage your wealth? This Kubera has very kind of Apple kind of policy that you just pay a subscription software.
Rohit: We couldn’t care less about how much your wealth is, whether you are diversified, not diversified. It’s a piece of software. That you pay us a subscription that pays for our bills. And then, you know, it’s, so it’s privacy. The business model is designed for privacy. And, and if you, if you don’t have a business model and your business model is designed for selling you more investment products.
Rohit: Then you have to build something that will analyze your data. There will be humans looking at your data and they’re trying to sell you financial products. So by using,
Mickelle: You’re the product. If you’re not paying, you’re the product.
Rohit: Specially, especially, I mean, it could work well if you’re using Facebook, you know, there are whatever, some cat pictures, who cares?
Rohit: But, uh, But, but especially financial data, like you don’t want other humans to see, see that data and pitch you financial product. So I think this business model gives us like this disadvantage that we don’t need to run data analysis on, on your software. So you, so you kind of land in kubera. com. You understand what it is about.
Rohit: What’s the business model? It’s a very clean business model. There are actually three tiers now. Uh, so one is a personal tier, you know, which would be enough for like 80, 90 percent of the users, you know, and then there are, there’s a tier for people who have little complex requirements, like they have multiple LLCs, you know, holding companies and things like that.
Rohit: So that there is a tier which we call a single family tier or and also some HNIs can use it where you have lots of trust structures and you have LLCs and holding companies and things like that. And you want to collaborate with a team, you know, you want to make sure that you give away granular access control.
Rohit: So for example, you have a financial advisor that, but that financial advisor is only managing part of your wealth. So you create a portfolio, share that portfolio with a financial advisor, but they don’t have visibility into the rest of the things that they don’t manage. Uh, so that that’s that’s like a tier for single family offices and people with complex requirements And then we also white label this product to financial advisors Uh, you know before kubera financial advisors used to give you very Arcane old school software that was designed for them not for you Uh, so you would never log in and you’ll always have this spreadsheet and you know, so they have given you a software, but you’re managing the spreadsheet.
Rohit: So we have these three business models. Uh, so you can like sign up for any of them. And, and you can buy directly from us, or you can go to your financial advisor and ask them, uh, to, to white label you contact us and white label the product. And we are fine either ways.
Mickelle: Yeah. Nice. And, and I don’t have to be, I have to say that you don’t have to be, I think it took me maybe over two days, 20 minutes to get everything in and I don’t have a simple setup.
Mickelle: And so I would say that the ease of getting started is much, much better. Easier than learning to use Excel spreadsheets.
Rohit: Um,
Mickelle: so I just want people to feel that, that, that if you are an international person and you, even if you don’t feel wealthy, I really feel like having access to the full picture of what you’re doing, um, is really important because I know a lot of people get stuck in this and they, they end up getting in trouble or they get overwhelmed and just end up moving back.
Mickelle: Because it’s such a heavy burden to have these, again, just two wealth, two people that are managing your taxes or whatever. And this doesn’t help with taxes, but just taking the load off and having one for you. One picture is well worth taking a look at if you’re living internationally, I think. Um, and so this is great.
Mickelle: Thank you for going deep on this with me. Um, and can you please tell people how they can learn more?
Rohit: So go to Kubera. com. That’s K U B E R A. com. Uh, sign up for the trial. And also if you want to reach out to me, uh, I am Rohit at Kubera. R O H I T at Kubera on Twitter.
Mickelle: Okay. Thank you so much. And I hope everyone listening got some good insights and some good tips about how to keep track of everything while living internationally.
Mickelle: Um, thanks again, Rohit. And I hope we’ll see you back on the show sometime soon.
Rohit: Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Bye.