Finance Software for Global Life with Rohit Nadhani Co-founder Kubera

In one of our most played moments, Rohit Nadhani, co-founder of Kubera, a financial life tracker designed for globally mobile citizens describes the unique challenges living abroad or between countries poses for financial tracking. From choosing which account to log in with to managing assets across countries, this episode helps us make sense of the small but relentless friction points that come with living across borders and how Kubera makes it easier.

Rohit shares his personal journey from Kolkata to California, where a one-year experiment turned into a decade of global living. Along the way, he realized the need for software that works for people like us, those with lives, bank accounts, and identities spread across countries. Kubera is rooted in that experience and designed with both elegance and practicality in mind.

Key Moments:

• Life Between Borders – Mickelle and Rohit explore the complexity of cross-border digital life.
  
  
  
• Designing for Global Citizens – Rohit shares how Kubera chose the harder path to serve international users.
  
  
  
• Building What You Love – Why creating software for your own life is a powerful business strategy.
  
  
  
• The Dead Man’s Switch – A secure, thoughtful legacy feature that handles the unexpected with grace.

✨ Listen to the full episode at houseofperegrine.com/podcast/ep-034

 Explore Kubera at www.kubera.com and connect with Rohit on LinkedIn.

Send us a text, we'd love to hear from you and hear what you're enjoying and what you'd like to hear about.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hi, I'm Michael Weber, founder and auteur of House of
Peregrine. Expat, immigrant, pioneer.
None of these were a fit, but Peregrine describes what we are
all about perfectly. Those that craft their life
story with intention. I've spent the last six years in
awe of the life changing connections and stories I've

(00:23):
experienced while living abroad and believe it is time for this
adventure to be recognized, celebrated, and elevated to the
life stage that it is. Through these interviews, I hope
to connect those living internationally more deeply to
both the place they are living and with themselves and those
around them. We cover everything from
international finances and meaning making to global

(00:46):
parenting and relationships to make your time abroad more
intentional, edifying and full of beauty.
Find us at houseofperegrine.com where you can find more ways to
connect with the ethos of Peregrine.
I hope you enjoy today's guest. Let's get started.
Hello and welcome back. If you've ever felt caught
financially between countries that you live in and maybe where

(01:09):
you're from, trying to figure out which card to use, where to
open account, which account to log in with, or where you want
your financial life to actually live, you're not alone.
I have felt all of this and more.
And when I started using Kibera,everything got just a little bit
easier. So I brought you today's short
episode because it's one of our most played.
I talked with Rohit Nadhani, oneof the founders of Kibera, about

(01:30):
what it means to build software for a globally mobile life.
He shares his own journey from growing up in India to the
moving to the US and the shift towards designing for global
citizens. We also share a surprising and
moving look at 1 of Kibera's most unique features, the Dead
Man Switch. I hope you enjoy it.
And for me, it was a breath of fresh air because when I'm using

(01:52):
things, I have to decide, am IA US person or am IA European
person? What do I switch?
Which phone number do I sign in with which, you know, Google
account, where is it registered?Like all of these things,
they're small, but they just addup.
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

(02:16):
you to plan, which is something we all need more than anything
because there's not really precedence for living this way
and doing it in this way. And so, yeah, congratulations.
I guess it's 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

(02:36):
from? And then did you plan on staying
in the US long term? Tell us your story about that.
Yeah, I grew up in Kolkata, which is the eastern part of
India. And then I moved to for for
career and to make to become a software engineer.
I moved to Bangalore, which is really the Silicon Valley of

(03:00):
India and I took up a job there for five years.
And then I started my first startup in Bangalore, which was,
which was enterprise software selling to US customers.
And that's how I started travelling to US.
And that's how I thought, Leah, maybe I should try living there
for, for some time before my kids, you know, grow up or, or

(03:24):
something like that. And we thought, and we had all
these luxuries and, and you know, everything was set in
India, Bangalore, but we said weare going to try for one year.
Like so I kept my apartment. 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

(03:45):
foreign land. And, and it was just like the
fact that I am into tech and software made it even more
natural for me to continue living here.
And then here we are now 10 years.
Maybe I'll go back to I1 day when I'm done with tech and
software, you know, and, and allof that.
But it's a good place for tech software.

(04:11):
It's a good place for kids to grow up as well.
Yeah, hilariously, that's what we said.
We moved to Amsterdam, we'll go for one year.
What could go wrong? And now it's been 7.
So it's, it happens when you do this.
Yes, yeah, that's so interesting.
And how has being in software, Ifeel like there's two types.

(04:34):
And I, 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 from US.
And I think that it's, you know,it's a it's a huge market.
I understand the US is a huge market.
One language. You don't have to do any type of

(04:54):
translating or regulatory thingsor anything, but you don't know
unless you live a way 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 and
having that point of view and inbusiness in general, I think
that's a really great point of view.

(05:16):
But have you noticed the same oram I just?
No, of course. So I think traditionally people
used to focus only in the US market because the share of U.S.
market was higher and it was also easier.
You know, you have to deal with one currency, you have to deal
with one UI you for, for us. I mean it's just sidetracking

(05:40):
for us. If you just wanted to support
US, engineering would have been engineering the product would
have been much easier. You just sign up to 1 aggregator
that supports US and you are done.
Just make sure that you hard code U.S. dollars and just so
much easier to engineer. But we said that the tides are

(06:02):
turning and and people are increasingly becoming global
citizens. So not only it makes more
business sense now to kind of have kind of a global product
because the rest of the world isgrowing and in fact growing
faster. You know, so maybe still they
are not maybe US still leads as a single highest country in

(06:25):
terms of software sales, but theinternational 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 everyday. So, but at the same time, if
there were, I mean, is this because at the end of the day,

(06:46):
I'm also trying to build a business.
So if building for the rest of the world doesn't make business
sense, I wouldn't have built it.But now it's a software that I
love using every day and it makes business sense.
So yeah, the timing was sweet from from that point of view.
Nice. So I want to talk about a little

(07:07):
bit about the process of using in Kubera.
Tell us about the dead meds, which 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?
And it sounds like there's a good story to begin with.
Yeah. So there are two, I would say

(07:28):
there are multiple reasons to use Kubera.
So one is one of the primary reasons is that you keep your
keep a live balance sheet. So you have your net worth, you
are actively tracking it and andyou don't panic when that is
volatility. And the second reason why many

(07:48):
people use Kubera is a single place for all your assets if
something happens to you. And now this is a very tricky
situation. Like why would you need a dead
man switch? 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.

(08:10):
You don't want to disclose all the information to everyone
before the event happens becauseit can get tricky.
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 situationlike things like, you know, you

(08:34):
have so much money, why don't you write like a $10,000 loan to
me? 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, it's a tricky situation.
If you don't give the loan, it'sa 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.

(08:56):
You want someone to take care ofit.
If you're small kids, you know, it has to be transferred or if
if you don't have any kids here,someone should like take control
of the situation. So dead man switch allows you to
ensure that all your information, financial
information transfers to the right.

(09:17):
We call it beneficiary only if something bad happens to you.
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 youOK?
And for example, the default is set to 45 days.
If you don't log in to Kubera after 45 days, we'll try the

(09:40):
system will try to contact you. Otherwise it will kind of export
everything in an Excel sheet andsend it to an e-mail address or
a phone number that you have specified in Kubera.
So we call it share, but not just yet.
What I love about Rohit's approach is that it's not just
about building features into software, it's about building

(10:00):
things for people for how they actually live between countries.
Whether you're moving for a yearor staying for a decade, or
maybe you don't know, Kubera meets you where you are right
now and helps you plan for what comes next.
If this clip resonated with you,I encourage you to go back and
listen to our full conversation in episode 34 and maybe even
give Kibera a try. All right, I will see you next

(10:22):
time. OK, that's it for today.
I hope you've enjoyed our show. For the latest insights on
living internationally, join us at houseofperegrine.com to find
out how you can connect with ourcommunity.
Let's.