I sold FreeCharge to Axis Bank for $60 million. I could have retired. But I had a thesis about trust and high-net-worth users that I needed to test. CRED is that test.
I built an app that rewards you for paying your credit card bill on time. People said that's not a business. Then 22 million high-income Indians signed up.
CRED only accepts users with a credit score above 750. We don't want everyone. We want the top. That exclusivity is the product.
Our Super Bowl ads made no sense to most people. That was the point. We weren't advertising to most people. We were advertising to the top 10%.
Everyone asks what CRED's business model is. Here's what they're really asking: why would anyone pay you for what credit card companies already do? The answer is: we made it a status symbol.