[00:00:00] Matt Duench: Welcome to Mistaken Identity, a podcast about unexpected lessons for building great products that customers love. I'm Matt Duench. Today I'll interview Arun Mohan, director of Product Management at Credit Karma. We'll talk about how you build great experiences, great systems, and great teams on the road to creating great products that customers love. This and more, up next on the Mistaken Identity Podcast. 

[00:00:23] Matt Duench: Well, welcome everybody to today's episode of the Mistaken Identity Podcast. I'm your host, Matt Duench. I'm really excited to be joined today with Arun Mohan from Credit Karma.

[00:00:33] Arun is the Director of Product Management. Arun, welcome to the show.

[00:00:37] Arun Mohan: Thank you, Matt. Thanks for having me.

[00:00:39] Matt Duench: Really excited to have you today. Uh, I think a neat perspective that you'll provide in sort of the financial services area around Credit Karma. But for the folks who maybe aren't familiar with Credit Karma, Could you give them a bit of insight into your role and what Credit Karma actually does?

[00:00:53] Arun Mohan: so Credit Karma is, uh, consumer finance app that's actually used by, I think 130 plus million Americans, at this point. Half half of the millennials are on our app and. You know, primarily most of our members, as we call 'em, uh, use the product to track and monitor their credit scores, understand kind of what goes into it, various factors, and really make progress towards improving it. Uh, but ultimately the credit score is just a means to an end. Uh, it's what's the last mile? Like what are you going to use that credit score to either buy a house or get a new credit card or consolidate your debt with a personal loan. So it's a combination of the uh, ability to understand your credit and also various products to actually help make use of that credit to get the best financial products out there for you. Uh, and our mission ultimately is to enable financial progress for everyone. Uh, goes from managing money to your credit, to, you know, both sides of the balance sheet. 

[00:01:50] Matt Duench: Love that. That's a, a very strong mission and one I think we can all get behind as well. So let's talk a little around your, your current role as director of product. How, how did you find yourself here in this role at Credit Karma?

[00:02:01] Arun Mohan: I've been at Credit Karma for a long time. I just finished eight, uh, I finished eight years. Um, you know, I was really drawn to the mission even back then, uh, when I, I still remember my, my interview with the C E O ...Kenly, at that time and, uh, and just, just how deeply rooted in consumer value and consumer trust the company was, really drew me to it. So I joined the company, worked a little bit on auto loans back in the day, and then really kind of helped build out over time, over a six year timeframe, this home and mortgage business, which, you know, there's no financial progress without thinking about home ownership and where you live and home expenses. So really thinking about building out the right product suites for that. And over time I kind of, as the company grew from a small startup to, you know, where it is right now. I kind of grew with the company to, to my current position and, and level.

[00:02:53] Matt Duench: And I mean with 130,000 clients, customers, it sounds like that's pretty incredible growth over those eight years as well.

[00:02:59] Arun Mohan: Yeah, I think, uh, we were about 200 employees when I joined, and we were about 2000. Right. So it's been a journey and it's been a fun one. Uh, but the, the core ethos still remains constant. Uh, around focusing on that consumer trust and building that engagement and value. And that's why I'm still very much excited to keep building at Credit Karma.

[00:03:19] Matt Duench: That's awesome. And I think that's one of the, you know, fundamental tenets we think about with the Mistaken Identity Podcast is this concept of building. And we've had the, you know, the, the luxury of having a, a great variety of product leaders on the show, uh, you know, uh, to date and over time. But when we think about your specific experience, I'd love to get in, you know, to what folks can learn from you.

[00:03:40] What do you think it takes to build successful products? What should folks be thinking about when they're trying to build, you know, a really successful product?

[00:03:49] Arun Mohan: Loaded question, right? Uh, Uh, I think just from a, this is a meta point, but I think from a mindset point of view, knowing that there is no finished product and it is actually the continuous process of improving your product, that is the art. And I think embracing that and appreciating that is half the battle, I think, to have the right culture within the team.

[00:04:12] Uh, but with that said, like I, I, um, and I can try to connect this to some of my experiences trying to build this kind of mortgage business from scratch.

[00:04:20] When we just had zero, we had a small team, no business, no product, no user. I mean, we had the broader Credit Karma user, user base to work with. I think. Picking one problem and really going deep and really trying to give it your best shot and focusing all your energy towards that is one key element to building, to reducing the time to successful product. So perhaps obvious, but I think most teams out there aren't as focused as they could be. Um, the second piece is momentum. Like if you're starting up from something from scratch and you're looking to take two years to build out your initial big launch. You've already lost momentum. You've already lost the battle. So how can you really break it down into sizable chunks that really anchors around learning and de-risking along the way. Uh, really sets up your product for success long term and also gets, gets you there faster. And I think the last thing is leverage, and I think this. Is is more nuanced point. Uh, but you can think about it in many ways. Like, I'll give you an example from my, my experience. Like we, we were building a marketplace of mortgage lenders to connect to our consumer base. Like, Hey, based on your credit profile, here's the best lender for you and kind of connect you. And we were that marketplace. And when we were launching kind of our mortgage vertical, we had this big promise to all these mortgage lender partners that we were working with that, hey, we're gonna give you a ton of volume and a ton of traffic. And, um, you know, we launched our initial M V P and didn't work out as we thought, but then, um, and then we realized, you know, time was passing by and let, we were losing leverage with those partners. So we had to take a step back and think about, okay, what are small things we can do to give them enough volume to keep them excited about the vision that we're on? Because it's a long journey we want to be on together. And that really kind of helped turn it around, buy us time to figure out the right product. And a year later we were, you know, three x uh, on a three x growth path. Um, so I think some of this can be internal organizational leverage, external, but it's really important. So I think a lot about focus, momentum, and leverage.

[00:06:25] Matt Duench: Yeah. And I like that idea of momentum as well in, in iterating and thinking about how you can, you know, conduct experiments and test your hypotheses as well. And you mentioned like having a, a minimum viable product in place too, an M V P. So when it comes to an M V P, do you have thoughts on how you know when you've got a good M V P? What does a good M V P look like?

[00:06:47] Arun Mohan: I tend to anchor a lot around learnings. So if your M V P can teach you the biggest assumption that you have in your product strategy and you can. Come outta that launching launch of that M V P and with the data saying, Hey, this was the biggest assumption we had, and this is the M V P told us that it is one way or the other working or not working, or you're validated, then I think you then it's a matter of pouring gasoline into the fire. But if you don't have that, you just launch, you just come up with an M V P that looks nice or is great for storytelling, but really doesn't de-risk your overall North Star and your strategy Then, It's not an M V P, uh, so it's almost like a minimum learning product as opposed to a minimum viable product.

[00:07:33] Matt Duench: Yeah. And M L P. I I like that a lot because it really puts that focus on learning and it it, like you said, breaking it down into chunks and understanding it. I think a lot of times when we think about that term, m v p, we think about this big monolithic, you know, product thing that we're trying to launch.

[00:07:48] You know, get it out, test it. Like it's when it's, it's built when it's a hundred percent of the way. But I think what you've kind of said with the, the minimum learning product, I like that a lot. 'cause that implies a lot of experimentation. Um, as well. So when you think about experimentation and how you pull that into your product, uh, management, product delivery process, what are some of maybe the most impactful experiments that you've ever run?

[00:08:10] How did you come across those? How did you decide what to test and, and what was the outcome there?

[00:08:14] Arun Mohan: You can probably imagine with 130 million members who are running hundreds of experiments every day. Uh, it's a tough one to choose, but there's one that kind of in my journey at Credit Karma that really, stands out because it was kind of a, an inflection point, uh, in terms of the growth of the, the mortgage business. Um, and it's kind of go, goes back to, uh, when I said the initial product that we launched, which was just a marketplace to help people find mortgage refinance lenders and to help 'em save money, uh, we thought we were really proud of the product. We did some user testing. It looked awesome, but people just weren't transacting as much as we thought. Uh, then as we dug in, we realized, you know, refinancing a mortgage or buying a home is such a big decision. You can't just show an offer and expect people to just in one session, uh, you know, have generate that intent and they'll transact. Right? So I think that was kind of naive on our part. Uh, and time was passing by. We were losing leverage as I was saying, and we realized, hey, are, is there a group of users in our member base who already have intent? Can we first build for them and give them a great experience before we go and try to build something for the masses? Try to create intent, right? And we realized, and this is partially drawn by an insight from our C E O, Ken, which is because we are a credit monitoring service, we, we know when you actually apply for a mortgage, we get that hot credit pull data. So we know you're in market for a mortgage. Now there's a question of like, oh, is it too late for us to like give you alternate options and whatnot. But that was kind like, let's try to fi figure out something to build for that audience and present them with competitive offers and helpful insights and see if that can get things off the ground.

[00:10:01] And it did, I think, uh, so the inspiration partially was, hey, that sort of create intent versus capture intent. Finding the right audience, I guess to start building your product for is so key, which we learned by failing. Um, and I think the second piece with, the actual experiment being successful was, it was not like we just reached out and said, Hey, we know your market for mortgage. Here are a bunch of offers for you. And it was very salesy marketing. Uh, we, what we thought hard about, like what might be a helpful insight that we can give you in that part of your mortgage journey that builds trust, builds value, and then the offer that we present to you is just, you know, the last mile of a conversation, right? And in this context, it was, most people did not know that if you apply for a mortgage, You have like 45 days to apply for multiple mortgages without additional impact to your credit. So us as Credit Karma, as a credit monitoring educational platform, we led with that insight and most people are like, aha, I did not know that. Thank you. Credit Karma. And now most people who do shop around tend to save more. And then we presented the best offers we had, but then we had a very objective tone. And if you have a better offer, stick with what you have. If you find something better here, you should reconsider. So. That sort of objective, unbiased opinion sort of approach really kind of worked and clicked.

[00:11:23] And really that was kind of the genesis of the vertical and the rest is history. Um, so I'm really kind of fascinated by that experiment and how the team was very torn and like, no, it's not gonna work, or it's not. But uh, but having the right product principles really set it up for success.

[00:11:39] Matt Duench: And I really like your focus there on user testing and, you know, not wanting to be too, like, perceived as being too creepy and reaching out to folks that just applied, you know, just completed obviously, um, a credit rating or an application there. Um, when you think about that, personalizing it, because I think especially what's getting harder for a lot of people that are trying to build an audience and they're trying to personalize for their users.

[00:12:02] You know, with third party cookies going away, et cetera, it's getting a lot harder to build a trust and build a relationship with this concept of like consented data with your customer. How, how do you think about that, you know, building in the personalization? 'cause I think at the end of the day what you said, it's not that customers don't want personalization, they certainly do. There just needs to be a bit of a value exchange there. So how do you think about that when you think, you think about how you're leveraging kind of what you're building on the UX side? And how you build trust with your end users in terms of the data that you leverage to make those recommendations.

[00:12:37] Arun Mohan: Personalization, I probably use that word five times a day at Credit Karma. Uh, because, uh, you know, when we think about our biggest assets, it's the trust that we have with our member base, and it's the data that we have and, we've done a great job at preserving that trust so far. But I think our members are at a point where, cool, we can check your credit. We can monitor. Uh, a credit score and Credit Karma. But now that you have all this data on me, how can you automate things for me? How can you make the friction in all these complex financial transactions a lot less for me? Uh, and that's really the shift within the company that we're seeing.

[00:13:15] Like it's less about exposing the data and giving you value by just enabling you to monitor, but actually using the data to take steps out of the picture for you. And it's just kind of the vision of. Uh, automated finance and money movement. Um, so I think, so that's kind of one aspect of it, what we think about a lot.

[00:13:35] So every single experience that we're building, we have pressure, pressure testing. Have we used every single element of this consumer's identity and profile that we know, uh, into our targeting, our eligibility, our ability to personalize that offer. That's what differentiates us and that's what we really want to lean into.

[00:13:54] Um, I think. To your point around kind of generally building user base and, uh, you know, having access to enough data to personalize. I think at least for Credit Karma, we only really focus on our members. So you have to be a, a, a, a member with a social security number that we pull credit for, and you have to log into access any of our real products.

[00:14:17] Um, so I would say, think about is there a specific value exchange where. It's worthwhile sort of creating that account and becoming, making a member. How can you switch someone from a user to a member? Right? And I think really thinking hard about that. And is there something you can build to make that an inflection point in your kind of curve as a company?

[00:14:38] I think as a product, I think we'll do magic later. Um, it also helps you focus more on members versus general users coming to your product. Um, um, I, I think I joined Credit Karma at a time and that problem's already solved. Uh, but I think that's, if I were to go start at a different company and kind of attack this problem, I would really think hard about that. Like what makes a user a member? 

[00:15:02] Matt Duench: So when you think about that balance of sort of the security, the privacy, and the convenience that you're delivering to your members, even just as something simple as that digital interaction when they log in the next time, are there things that you're thinking about, you know, from building into the product, um, or even creating a better experience there that folks could really, you know, leverage your experience from?

[00:15:22] I.

[00:15:22] Arun Mohan: one thing, which is I don't think when it comes to like balancing security and user experience, I, I don't think there's any balancing. I think you can cut business corners, u ui, ux corners, but when it comes to security and privacy, You know, it only takes one bad incident and one bad experience to tarnish and lose that user and also tarnish the whole company.

[00:15:42] So I think trust is that number one asset. Um, you know, credit Karma, we, we take pride in that. Sometimes it slows us down, uh, in terms of building certain products and holding our partners accountable to high standards. But that's, that's what it takes to hold a high bar when it comes to security. So, so I will say that, um, uh, Yeah.

[00:16:05] But I guess in terms of, uh, you know, uh, I think a lot about this notion, and especially in financial services, this notion of a, a universal profile. Um, 'cause I think one of the challenges today is, I mean, take a mortgage application, for example. Like we can tell you that you can apply with three lenders and it won't hurt your credit more.

[00:16:27] But you still gotta take your entire set of documents and your credentials and your identity documents and your tax documents and all of that to three different, uh, three different mortgage lenders. And it's a lot of pain. It's a lot of friction. So, um, you know, we, we think about that a lot and as being kind of that intermediary marketplace and us having a lot of this data. What are secure ways in which we can sort of package up that profile that we have on the customer that they have verified. They can update on Credit Karma in a secure fashion, but when they're ready to transact with one of our lending partners, for example, they don't have to start from scratch. Like we can pass that data along in a secure way, uh, through APIs, through a couple of other approaches that we have kind of, kind of thought through that we, uh, want the customer to be literally as close to a one click application as possible. To your point about like friction at the right time, we don't want to submit behind the scenes an application, uh, but we wanna basically fill everything out and the user has to just verify, make updates if they really want to, and call it a day. And they're pre-approved for that offer. Uh, Like that's, that's kind of the, the vision that we think about a lot. And we build, we've built a lot of products to try to standardize that customer profile, to make that vision a lot easier, uh, over the last few years.

[00:17:52] Matt Duench: I think that's so important is, is that balance as well and making it really frictionless. You know, as you mentioned for your users without compromising security or privacy. Right. That's, those are, those are pretty tough challenges to deal with those forces, you know? Absolutely. And that, that's for really, that's for anyone building applications and that's really every company, right? That has users. We all have digital channels, we all have ma many different properties and I like that that point you kind of mentioned about a universal idea or like a centralized identity as well. Cause that's kind of the thing too, is if you have multiple applications, as most companies do, multiple properties, web applications, Uh, mobile applications, et cetera. Yeah. If, if it's, if it doesn't, if I have to log into every property, every single, you know, different device I use, different format I use, it doesn't, it's not the greatest experience for me as a member, as a user.

[00:18:40] Um, so I think that's a really good point for folks to, that listening to this to think about as well, is think about the broad journey and experience that your customers have with your brand and those inter, those digital interactions and how you can make those, uh, you know, as, as, uh, easy, frictionless, and secure as possible.

[00:18:57] Arun Mohan: Yeah. And I would just add that, not just think about the experience they're having with your product, but think about, how you could enable them to take the value of the data that you, their data that you have across the ecosystem. Like, I think, uh, you know, currently companies in intermediary marketplace, companies like Credit Karma, we're trying to build and standardize, uh, the sort of data exchange as much as possible.

[00:19:22] But the North Star really is a consumer has full control over that profile and they can, you can imagine a future where you can just. Log in with Credit Karma anywhere in various applications. It's kind of pulls in your entire financial profile, uh, for any financial application that you want to do on the internet. Like that's, that's the direction I think we all as an industry, we need to head towards.

[00:19:45] Matt Duench: Yeah. Uh, I think it's a really interesting one that you're proposing there as well is Credit Karma potentially becoming an, uh, identity provider, an I D P, right. And logging in with your Credit Karma account on different properties and leveraging some of that data that has been consented to. That's the key point there too. Well, shifting gears a little bit to this concept of, especially in software, um, you know, software as a service, there's this concept of do I build it or do I buy it? Especially for companies that are growing, they're scaling, they're building their applications, they're, they're at various stages of their digital transformation. Oftentimes development teams are, and even product teams are really faced with this challenge of should we build it ourselves and leverage our existing development resources to do that? And. You know, not to not focus on our core business or do we buy it? Do we work with, uh, you know, a vendor, a best of breed vendor to kind of provide this?

[00:20:35] We'd love to hear if you have thoughts on, on this in terms of, you know, when you think about developing, uh, you know, the development of your applications, you think about the development of your services into your ux, what are some of the considerations you apply to your team and, and things you think about when you're building those experiences?

[00:20:51] Arun Mohan: Credit Karma is not a mortgage lender or a mortgage broker by definition, where sort of this credit monitoring company, even an educational platform at the end of the day. but we have a vision to be more and more of, uh, a mortgage provider go deeper in that process. Um, but I think at first when we set out on that journey, we thought, hey, we can take a similar formula that, uh, we won with credit cards, which is a lot simpler of a transaction than like a mortgage and just apply a similar playbook.

[00:21:22] And, uh, it was gonna work, but it did not. And I think two years into our journey, we realized there's so much nuance and complexity in terms of how regulation, in terms of compliance, in terms of data exchange, in terms of how sort of the backend of all mortgage systems work that we just don't. I. It's gonna take us 10 years to build.

[00:21:43] Um, so at the very least do we have the expertise in the building. Uh, is what we're trying to build adjacent to our core strength and something we've done in the past. Um, and speed to market. Like those are the, the three things I would really think about. And we applied this when, uh, a few years ago we acquired this company called Approved, which was a mortgage point of sale company.

[00:22:07] They're kind of built out the entire mortgage application, digital mortgage, application flow, document upload, and really trying to make that consumer process a lot seamless, uh, along with a team who came with a lot of mortgage background and mortgage expertise and bringing that team in, bringing some of the core features from that product into our experience with some major accelerant, um, to, you know, to grow our business from sort of, you know, 10 million to a hundred million.

[00:22:32] At that time, it was a 10 x type accelerator. Um, but it took us a couple years to be humbled. Uh, so now, so now I ask myself that often, like, uh, you could have your, you know, as we, we still hold onto the, the product features that are, when it comes to like, if we want to help you improve your credit to become home ownership ready.

[00:22:53] What do you need to do if, if you need to pay off your debt and have the right debt, pay down strategy to improve your debt to income? That's what we're good at, like our core strength, we will lean into that. But when it comes to the actual transactional piece of it, like let's actually rely on either, you know, partnerships, others, SaaS providers and so on, and there are plenty of great white label tools out there to deliver that.

[00:23:15] Matt Duench: So when you think about even just this concept of like, you know, pro product, getting into product management for the first time. So I, I'd love to hit on kind of your leadership experience, how you think about building teams, but really the first question I have for you is, What's, what are the highs, the lows? What's, you know, what's, what's so great about product management? What's, uh, what's great about the process? What do you love about it?

[00:23:37] Arun Mohan: You can always make a product better. So you have to keep enjoying that process of continuously improving your product. Um, that is product management. And I think you, you can ask any PM like, do you like your product? And most of them will say, not really. It could be better. Right. Uh, and it never ends. And it's very similar. I, I mean, I kind of, you can pattern match to life, right? I think it's, as long as you're excited about learning and continuously evolving, I think, uh, I think you'll be in a good place. I think if you don't have that, the lows are gonna be real

[00:24:12] Matt Duench: low.

[00:24:13] Arun Mohan: Um, so I, I, that's one point I think, I think the other piece is like, there is, you know, there's a lot of interest and excitement in product management as a, as a career path for a lot of people. And it's really surged in the last five years or so. Um, but I think, you know, 90% of the job might not be as sexy as it sounds, you know? And I think until you, and you have to kind of, you, in order for you to realize that the value and the excitement from that 10%, which is really, craft the craft, the building of the product, the creative side. Actually seeing your users use it and bring, realize some of the value. I think that on a day, day by day basis, that's I think 10 to 20% of your day, but everything else about collaboration and coordination, communication is all in service of that 10%. Um, so understanding that balance and really appreciating that balance, uh, and fighting every day to shift that balance, to make that 10%, 20%, 30%. Uh, I think that's, that's the art of enjoying product. 

[00:25:16] Matt Duench: Yeah. The, the highs are very high and the lows, they can be very low. Um, and you, you mentioned one of the C words that I just absolutely love 'cause I think it's critical to, to any successful product manager. And that's collaboration. Right? And I think it's imperative that you establish or work to establish a collab, like a culture of collaboration. Because like you said, you'll get into product management and you'll realize that there are so many things that you need to think about, teams that you need to work with, that you need to bring along, you need to have alignment, you have to work with them in order to create the best product and best experiences possible. I'd love to hear how you think about that. How do you think about structuring teams? Um, you know, creating common goals, how do you drive incentives across those teams? We'd love to hear kind of your perspective there.

[00:26:01] Arun Mohan: I would say the first one, I think making sure you have an outcome oriented culture and not a milestone oriented culture, right? I think it's gonna be really important, and this is where the role of the PM comes in where you, our ability, your ability to set the context of what's the North star, what's the ultimate outcome we're driving towards, break it down decis chunks and have specific outcomes for each of those chunks. And then how we get there is a team sport, but defining that, creating that sandbox for the team and setting the right outcome structure and learning structure, uh, is the PM's job.

[00:26:40] So I think outcome oriented structure is, is really important. And outcome can also mean. Uh, either you structure teams around a specific audience or a specific member segment, or it can be around a specific metric deliverable or an outcome you're trying to drive. 

[00:26:56] The tactics are up to you. You have representatives from product, marketing, engineering, design, and all the people you need to work with. You have your own core leadership team within the pod. We as leader leaders, we just need to check in to make sure that we are synthesizing the learnings and making progress towards that outcome.

[00:27:13] But the tactics are really up to you, right? Uh, you could do that or you could say, Hey, this is the team for project A, and this is the team for project B, or this team for project C. That is exactly what you don't want to do, which you know, people still end up doing. Sometimes you have to do it given the reality of the business and the situation. But if that's the majority of your team's structure, then I think you should take a step back. 

[00:27:36] Matt Duench: In product, your product is never done right. You're, you're always looking to improve it. If you were to ask another product manager, I. If they like their product, they're probably like, yeah, but I can, I can improve it.

[00:27:47] So when you think about that, I like to think about that as almost innovation, right? Because you're, you're trying to do that n plus one every day. You're trying to make it incrementally better, you know, every single day. So when you think about innovation, how does, how does Credit Karma, or even in your role at Credit Karma, how do you think about innovation, um, and what do you think the most important thing is for driving that innovation?

[00:28:07] Arun Mohan: So understanding, deepening understanding of consumers, use your product today. Uh, understanding your true strengths as a company, which you can like really lean into. Uh, and also being very, uh, humble and aware of your gaps, that you need to be more deliberate about bridging, either through more research or more expertise or partnerships or acquisitions or whatever, right?

[00:28:28] I think that that is being very honest about that. I think it's gonna be important to succeed with innovation. Um, and I think taking a, the last point is take a build for user value, revenue will come. The mindset, uh, credit Karma is where it is today because of our c e o really being diligent about ensuring that's the culture and it's really played out well.

[00:28:54] You know, for the longest time we, you know, the, the founders just set out to be like, Hey, credit score, people shouldn't have to pay for credit scores. Period. Let's go solve that problem. We'll get a user base and we'll figure out how to make money because they'll trust us. We actually became the good guys in a bad space and we'll figure out how to make money. And that's exactly what happened. But if not, if they would've really taken focus away from that user value and solving the user problem and tried to like, Figure out unit economics and all that pretty early. I think we might not be where we are today, but that also meant the long, it took a lot, lot longer for Credit Karma to get to where it is, but the outcome was way, way better than it could have been otherwise.

[00:29:34] So, so yeah, build for user value, revenue will come. Um, and I think, uh, the, going back to the initial point on how consumers perceive our brand today, I think it's really important to think about, uh, like Credit Karma, as I said, most people think about the product as primarily a credit score monitoring product and a credit monitoring product. Um, even though we have a bunch of other products and services that we offer today. So if we are making recommendations for a credit card or recommendations for consolidating a debt with a personal loan, for example, um, instead of just showing you offers you could qualify for. Connecting that recommendation to like, Hey, you've been working hard on your credit. Here's what your improved credit score is unlocked for you, is way more aligning a net new product zone to something that the consumers already think about your product has, as opposed to thinking about it in a silo in isolation. So if you don't, if you miss that, then I think it gets a lot harder to build new, innovative products.

[00:30:35] Matt Duench: Think about the user experience. So think in your words, build for users, revenue will come. Like, I, I really, I think that's just such a powerful thing. Is that really focuses on the experience and it's not just, as you mentioned, it might have taken a bit longer potentially for Credit Karma to grow your user base, but how much more do they trust?

[00:30:52] How does more, how much more does your membership trust the brand trust every interaction that they have with Credit Karma, like gotta be orders of magnitude above, you know, even, even other folks in that are in the industry. So I think that's, it's such a, that's a really critical point for folks to, to take away. Anyone listening to this podcast is, is just that like, The importance of the user experience and that value exchange is so critical and it's so critical across every digital touchpoint that like, that's the challenge, but also the unique opportunity. I think at the same time,

[00:31:23] Arun Mohan: Absolutely.

[00:31:24] Matt Duench: I was thinking a little bit around innovation and I'd love to hear, you know, a tech development, not to put this on the radar, but what's the tech development that you're most excited for, that you're most looking forward to?

[00:31:38] Arun Mohan: Yeah, I'm, I'm gonna be the first one to use this word in the last week. Uh, it's called Gen ai.

[00:31:45] Matt Duench: Oh, Gen AI.

[00:31:48] Arun Mohan: Uh, I am excited about the applications of deepening the applications of AI, specifically within consumer finance.Someone who's really thought about this arduous journey of buying a home and the American dream and all the things you need to do to get there, and how can we make it easier?

[00:32:07] I think one of the challenges that we've run into, for example, is buying a home, for example, is a very emotional decision. It's a life event. Driven decision. Oftentimes, it's not just you got all your finances in order, so you're just gonna buy a house. It's not always the case, and it's always been very hard to really look at all of the people who have been on the journey and to really understand what your journey could be, and to give you very actionable, tangible next steps you can take to achieve that goal within a specific timeframe. Really hard to do at scale with just heuristics and rules. Uh, And I think things like that would really, gen AI can really come in, tap into like consumer identities and profile data at large platforms like Credit Karma and really help hyper-personalized the next steps and the things you need to do to achieve your financial goals.

[00:32:58] And I think I'm really hoping that technology really helps solve for a lot of challenges people have with like access to lack of access to home ownership and lack of understanding of the process and all of that. So Gen AI within consumer finance is something I'm very excited about.

[00:33:14] Matt Duench: It's impossible to believe that we have made it to this point of the podcast, and it's the first time that we have gen generative ai. Um,

[00:33:24] Arun Mohan: We did good. We did good.

[00:33:25] Matt Duench: we did well. Yeah, excellent. But, uh, but I, I fully agree. I think obviously it goes without saying that, you know, that technology alone is going to introduce both massive opportunity, I think for every business and every industry.

[00:33:38] And a lot of really new risks too, that we weren't thinking about before. Because yes, as great as a generator of AI recommendation or contextual recommendation might be, there is also those AI powered attacks that are starting to, um, you know, uh, folks are, they're getting craftier with it. You could take a lot of that complexity of building an attack out of it and start pointing it at a website and saying, okay, show me where all the vulnerabilities are.

[00:34:03] It gets really unique both on the opportunity side and the things that we need to think about as businesses and how we keep our users' data safe. How, how do we protect their privacy, keep their, their trusted tact and, and really just establish those, uh, you know, elements of risk that we can make sure that we're keeping them away from.

[00:34:18] So.

[00:34:19] Arun Mohan: Yeah. Yeah. And I think in the context of kind of future of data for and privacy, I think in the context of gene ai, like how we built better tools and infrastructure to, to strengthen that is. It's gonna be pivotal and I mean, I, I'm hoping kind of the, the shiny toy phase of gen AI is gonna cool off a little bit and all of the use cases will cool off a little bit and the industry will take one step back to really kind of invest in more tooling and infrastructure and security and privacy.

[00:34:48] Uh, and then there's gonna be the real accelerant of value that's gonna come in the next 10 to 15 years. Uh, but that scale is not gonna come until some of these fundamental infrastructure and security challenges aren't, uh, sound. Uh, we just gotta write out the current phase and I think, uh, I think we'll get to it.

[00:35:06] Matt Duench: It's the, it's the hype cycle, right? Yeah, I totally agree. We're, we're at the not even the trough of disillusionment now. It's, uh, it's, it's a very interesting point for sure. Um, so thinking, uh, even just to, to fall back on some of your experience and thoughts, your thoughts on leadership in general, um, what do you think some of the most underrated product leader product management skills are to have?

[00:35:29] Arun Mohan: The 90% of our job is building new things, right? I think not enough product people and product leaders specifically create an environment that feels safe to like kill products. You know, I think it's equally important to kill a product that's not working. Uh, than to scale one that is working because, you know, killing products can make your product and team a lot less suffocated. It can open up a lot more revenue pathways in the product that you didn't even realize existed because it was just piling on experiment after experiment. So I would say killing products is one thing, one underrated skill.

[00:36:05] Um, I would say marketing as, I think I mentioned this earlier, like thinking about. Marketing, positioning and uh, brand quite a bit in terms of how your, what product initiatives you choose to build. Where do you have an advantage? What might give you an advantage to win with this product? I think not enough PMs think about that. 'cause they're just so focused on their specific part of the product you own and not necessarily zooming out to ask yourself like, how is this gonna land as a user who's not thinking about. Your specific feature, right? They're thinking about the overall app or product. So invest a little bit, spend more time with your marketing friends, you know, spend more time with the mat, mat, with the mats of the world, and, uh, you're, you'll do a better job at building better products.

[00:36:51] Matt Duench: Yeah, I, I definitely agree. I think when we think about product marketing and how we work together with product management, it very much is a partnership. Uh, you know, it's a partnership with marketing, with the field and with product management together. 'cause I think like that's exactly, you know, you're gonna learn from the field what your customers are really looking for and the words they're using to search for things.

[00:37:12] And also the challenges, most importantly, the pain points that, that they're really struggling with. And then bringing that back in and working with the product managers and your engineering teams to develop in that and developing very strong messaging around that, that resonates with that customer that you were just talking to.

[00:37:29] So that it, you know, it solves their pain points and then it becomes very easy thinking about friction. You remove that friction away when you're solving a problem for a customer. That's pretty, that's, that's pretty easy. So I think you're right. I, I love that. I think people can definitely aspire to build stronger partnerships. It gets back to your point about collaboration earlier too. Just really focus on building stronger partnerships across the teams that you work with and the teams that can help you win and make your product successful.

[00:37:54] Arun Mohan: Yeah. Product management is a, is a team sport. Strong believer of that. Yeah.

[00:37:59] Matt Duench: So in the last couple minutes here, we'd love to go through a couple of quick hits and, you know, get to know you a little more and some things that you're up to. So the first thing is, what's your, your favorite thing that you're either reading or watching right now?

[00:38:13] Arun Mohan: Reading is a habit has fallen off by radar. I'm trying to bring it back, but let me, let me answer that as more in terms of a, a thing that I'm focused on and a lot of the content, uh, content that I'm consuming kind of. Of reflects that, which I'm trying to practice better self-compassion. So I'm like thinking and reading a lot about self-compassion, self-acceptance, a lot of, uh, books around that and, uh, content courses related to that and so on.

[00:38:41] Because I think, I mean, speaking of lows of product management, you know, sometimes I think, you know, having, uh, you can apply that in the context of enjoying the journey, as I said, right? I think you have to enjoy the process. You have to. You have to create a culture where you put your best foot forward.

[00:38:58] It's okay if you fail, but as long as you learn from it and you move forward, that's a great team. That's what you want. That's what I want to be as a person. That's the kind of culture I want to have on my team. So I think and think a lot about that and consuming a lot of content related to that at this point.

[00:39:12] Matt Duench: And that's good. That's, I mean, that's really how you mentioned it too. I think that's how you build trust with your team too. Um, you know where people. It's, it's, it's comfortable vulnerability, right? Like if you feel that you have the utmost trust in that person, I think that's, that's a really helpful way to think about that and how you build or go about building strong teams.

[00:39:31] I think that's actually a really, really important piece for people to think about.

[00:39:35] So outside of Credit Karma, what's the best job that you've ever had?

[00:39:38] Arun Mohan: Let's see. I mean, when I came to the US this was like, uh, 13 years ago or so. Uh, I came in for grad school and um, you know, grew up in the comfort of just home. Most things taken care of and all that. And then, uh, coming here, gonna grad school and like working at the college, uh, cafe, uh, you know, I was at the Mongolian Grill, uh, whipping up nice, uh, you know, beef plates, beef and rice plates. And it was. I just enjoyed it. I think it really was a ma, a major, it really unlocked independence in me, I think, and, uh, also told me to not take a lot of things for granted. And I think really my journey within the US that was kind of an interesting kind of moment in my brain was like, okay, this job is really going, I know this is gonna help me put, help, put me on a path of being more self-made, more independent. And it has. So I don't know that I, I think about that one every now and then.

[00:40:36] Matt Duench: That's awesome. You just made me really hungry. I'm thinking about the Mongolian Mongolian Grill now. I used to, used to love that place. It was,

[00:40:44] Arun Mohan: Yeah. The, the giant round one. Yeah. Yeah. It's

[00:40:46] Matt Duench: just, uh, definitely, definitely the place to be. That's awesome. Um, what about the best tech advice that you've ever gotten?

[00:40:54] Arun Mohan: Oh, this one's an easy one. Um, because, this really shifted the trajectory of my career. Uh, uh, the advice was finance, if anything, is going to be more powered by technology. Uh, and this was advice given to me like 12, 13 years ago. And FinTech wasn't even really a buzzword. Uh, and I was in hard pursuit of trying to break into finance and trying to be a banker on Wall Street. And, uh, I was really humbled by a mentor at that time, and he was, Like, Hey, uh, you don't have to be an engineer, even though I had like a computer science background, but try to find yourself at the intersection of finance and technology. You're gonna have a great career. I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know what product management was. I didn't know what FinTech was. But, you know, life happened and, uh, found myself at Credit Karma and my past job and my, pretty much my entire career has been doing product management in FinTech. But that wasn't like my goal when I started my, when I came here.

[00:41:55] Matt Duench: I, I love that because I think in addition to product managers, you know, I find myself in product marketing. Some of the best product marketers that I've ever worked with have come from very diverse backgrounds. They've been sales engineers, they've been engineers, they've been, I. You know, they've been in public relations or analyst relations coming from very diverse backgrounds, not something you go to, you go to school for. So I love that.

[00:42:18] Arun Mohan: Some of the best product leaders I know are like English majors. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:42:23] Matt Duench: It's awesome. Um, you, you talked a little about, you know, finding yourself. Where can people find you online? What's the best spot to to link, to link up with everyone.

[00:42:33] Arun Mohan: I like that tee up. That's a good one. Uh,

[00:42:37] Matt Duench: would you said it. I better not forget that.

[00:42:40] Arun Mohan: Uh, I mean LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the best, best place to find me. You can search over Mohan. I think it should pop up right there. Uh, shoot me a connection and, uh, happy to help out with this, to talk about. Mortgages, home buying product, uh, maybe Gen ai. We'll, we'll see. But yeah, would love to connect and, and chat more about what we're doing at Credit Karma and my own journey.

[00:43:04] Matt Duench: Excellent. Well, Arun, hey, listen, it was, it was great having you on the Mistaken Identity Podcast today. Really great conversation. Lots of amazing learnings, I think for, for the listeners tuning in. So thank you again.

[00:43:14] Arun Mohan: Thanks for having me. This was fun.

[00:43:16] Matt Duench: Well, that was Arun Mohan, director of Product Management at Credit Karma. Thanks for listening to Mistaken Identity. I'm Matt Deunch. Join me next time as we explore how to leverage customer identity to your advantage.