How Azibo’s Vikas Gupta is on a Mission to Streamline Property Management for Independent Real Estate Investors
I had the pleasure of interviewing Vikas Gupta the CEO of Azibo, a unified financial and property management platform for independent real investors. Prior to Azibo, he was the founder at Nodabl, an HR-tech SaaS startup. Before that, Vikas ran product and strategy for The Baby Box Co, a Series A digital education platform for expecting parents. Vikas’ first startup role was at Factual, an enterprise location data company, where he joined as one of the earliest five business hires, and helped grow them to eight-figures in revenue — first in a generalist role and then as the head of marketing. He’s also worked in commercial real estate tech at LoopNet and started his career as an analyst at McKinsey & Company, where he focused mainly on financial services.
Over his 15+ years in technology, Vikas has helped companies grow to 8+ figures in revenue. He’s actively involved in the community, serving as the co-host of the Hacking Real Estate podcast where he discusses pain points and solutions for rental owners and investors navigating the ever-changing real estate market.
What motivated you to launch your startup?
Our co-founder Chris Hsu’s inspiration to create Azibo arose from his personal experience owning and managing rental properties as a side hustle while he focused on building his corporate career.
Chris was a “spreadsheet Ninja” who used his specialized skills to construct an intricate system of spreadsheets to track and manage his properties.
It quickly became a no-brainer for Chris to realize there had to be a better way for rental investors from all walks of life to gain tools and insights for success — without handing 8–12% of their income to full-service property managers. Azibo is the result.
I first joined Azibo in 2021 as COO, and now I lead the company as CEO.
What is it that excites you about what you’re building?
I was recently asked to describe today’s real estate industry in one word, and what came to mind was “transformational.” There is so much change happening across the rental space, and with that comes the opportunity for new players to join the real estate investing world. People like Chris who do it as a side hustle while working a full-time job, but who are competing against institutional investors.
With that in mind, at Azibo, we want to level the playing field for independent property owners. We envision a world where anyone can achieve financial flexibility through rental property ownership. And we use technology to simplify and enhance the experience of managing and growing real estate investments.
Unlike other property management software available today, Azibo is the only platform that integrates both financial services and accounting solutions specifically designed for real estate investors with property management capabilities as well. While most landlords and real estate investors use fragmented tools to run their business — including QuickBooks or Excel spreadsheets for accounting and taxes; separate solutions for accepting rental applications and screening tenants; and then collecting rent via cash, Venmo, or direct deposits with their preferred bank — Azibo real estate investors are doing all of that in one place. Azibo also offers its core solutions for free, helping real estate investors save money and improve their profit margins.
To date, we’ve seen:
- Over 20,000 rental units managed on Azibo
- Over 10,000 positive reports made to credit bureaus to help renters build credit
- Raised over $37 million from notable investors, including Khosla, Canaan, QED, Camber Creek, RET, and Liberty Mutual
- Successfully processed over 250 million financial transactions on the Azibo platform
What has been your biggest challenge when growing your startup?
I’ve been working in startups for almost 15 years now and the biggest challenge has consistently been people. Startups are an act of creation, and creation is hard. There are many exogenous factors that influence success that by definition we can’t control, but for all the ones we can control, they all come down to quality of people.
When growing your startup, you’re looking at ways to build the most effective team at every level. You ask yourself, “Do we have the right people?” Not just about smart or not smart. Individuals who have the drive, ability to work in ambiguous environments, ability to handle change, and juggle multiple priorities. People who can collaborate — working together to come up with better ideas, better solutions, and are pushing each other to do better. These individuals encompass a growth mindset which is the most important factor when scaling a venture backed business.
And ultimately, there are so many opportunities for great people these days, even in today’s market environment. Finding, attracting, retaining those people is always hard.
What are your future plans for your startup?
Our software workflows and automation tools perform within the context of a modern financial services platform. But with recent product launches like online rental applications, tenant screening, lease creation, we’re excited to continue to broaden Azibo as that one place where real estate investors can manage their entire business.
If you had to share, “words of wisdom,” with a Founder who’s about to start their own startup, what would they be?
For someone about to start, I’d say this: Delay fundraising as long as possible and don’t fundraise if you can bootstrap. Even after fundraising, don’t give into pressure to spend more money unless you can actually grow faster by spending that money (easy to spend money and feel like you are moving faster because you are doing more, only to realize that you actually haven’t made much progress. To paraphrase John Wooden, activity doesn’t mean achievement. Some things take time, and can’t be hurried by money. And once you get on the VC treadmill it’s really hard to get off. That’s not to say that VC can’t be great. Many amazing businesses wouldn’t have been built without VC, including Azibo. I’ve been fortunate to always work with good investors. The people I have around the table at Azibo are some of the smartest investors in tech, fintech, and proptech. But it’s still VC — and that means hypergrowth, massive scale, or bust. And that comes with a lot of pressure.
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This was very insightful. Thank you so much for joining us!
