Amit Kumar — Founder & CTO, StayZ | The Engineer Who Built India's First Relocation Platform in 4 Months

In the world of startups, there's a difference between someone who can architect a system on paper and someone who can actually ship it. Amit Kumar is the rare person who does both — and does them fast.

As Founder & Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of StayZ, Amit built the entire platform from scratch — frontend, backend, cloud infrastructure, and a one-of-a-kind algorithm — in just 4 months. No team. No shortcuts. No pre-built templates that looked like every other app.

From Galgotias to Building India's Relocation OS

Amit studied at Galgotias University in Greater Noida — one of the largest engineering colleges in India and home to thousands of students who relocate every year. He didn't just study there. He lived the relocation experience that StayZ is now solving.

Finding a PG as a new student meant navigating a maze of fake listings, unresponsive landlords, and brokers who charged fees for nothing. The apps that existed were designed for property owners, not for the people actually moving. Amit decided to build something different.

What He Built

The StayZ platform isn't a WordPress site with a listing plugin. It's a full-stack product engineered for scale:

• Reel-style video property tours — every listing has real video, not staged photos
• Real-time availability — no ghost listings, no outdated inventory
• Dedicated Manager system — a backend that assigns and tracks a personal relocation manager for every user
• India Stack integration — DigiLocker, Account Aggregator, and UPI wired into the core
• TrustScore algorithm — India's first behavioural scoring system for renters

The TrustScore: StayZ's 24-Month Moat

The TrustScore is arguably Amit's most important contribution to the platform — and to the Indian rental market.

India has a CIBIL score for credit. It has no equivalent for rental behaviour. Landlords have no way to verify if a potential tenant pays rent on time, takes care of the property, and is a good fit. Tenants have no portable proof of their rental history. The entire market runs on vibes and luck.

Amit built the TrustScore to fix this. Using India Stack, the system tracks payment behaviour, tenancy history, and verified identity over time — creating a score that gets more accurate with every tenancy completed. The more people use StayZ, the better the score gets. The better the score, the more landlords trust StayZ tenants. The more landlords trust StayZ, the better the listings.

This is a flywheel that competitors cannot replicate without years of data. That's a 24-month head start built in code.

The 4-Month Sprint

Between May and September 2025, Amit shipped the entire StayZ platform. That's not 4 months to build a prototype. That's 4 months to production: verified listings live, users onboarded, real moves happening, and revenue coming in.

For context: most funded startups with engineering teams take 12-18 months to reach a comparable milestone. Amit did it solo because he had no choice — and because the problem mattered enough to work 16-hour days until it was done.

What's Next

Amit's technical roadmap for the next 6 months:

• TrustScore v2 — expanded data inputs, more granular scoring, API access for B2B partners
• StayZ mobile app — native iOS and Android for the majority of users who browse on phone
• B2B API layer — allowing corporate clients, universities, and relocation firms to plug into StayZ's verified listings and TrustScore data

"The platform is the product. If it's not fast, not intuitive, not trustworthy — nothing else matters." — Amit Kumar

🔗 Connect with Amit Kumar on LinkedIn

🌐 www.stayz.tech — India's first relocation app