Nikhyl Singhal
Founder of Skip | Formerly Meta VP, Google Director, Credit Karma CPO | Two-time founder CEO
About
Over the past 20+ years, I built a career in technology, thinking big yet acting small. I've done that by combining a healthy dose of naivety, many lucky breaks, and insanely helpful and supportive friends and family. And always taking on big challenges, leaning into what was working and doing less of what wasn't. I love consumer innovation at scale, working on four top 100 mobile apps in different markets - Facebook feed in social networking, Credit Karma in consumer finance, Google Hangouts in communications and Google Photos for, well, photography. Coaching and mentoring is my other love. I give back to as many as I can since so many helped me along my journey. I currently work at Facebook supporting the product management teams in the FB app for the news feed and stories. Prior to that, I led product at Credit Karma, where we were becoming the “money button on the phone” for the US. One in three Americans uses Credit Karma to make financial progress. It was a joy to work in a growth environment building one of the best businesses in the valley while helping everyday consumers. Prior to Credit Karma, I spent four years at Google, where I built and led a few product teams, most notably Hangouts, Google's real-time communication product line, and Photos. Prior to Google, I co-founded three startups (SayNow, Cast Iron Systems, WebSwap). SayNow created a voice-based Twitter-like service that connected influencers to 1 out of 3 US teen girls via phone numbers. Cast Iron was the leader in SaaS and cloud integration, starting as an enterprise appliance and ending up in the cloud. And WebSwap tried (and failed) to make consumer barter a thing. IBM acquired Cast Iron in 2010, and Google bought SayNow in 2011. I served as the founding CEO of both companies. Previous advisory and investment roles include: Coda (acquired by Grammerly) Bytegain (acquired by Stripe), Allume (acquired by Google), Welkin Health, Snowball (acquired by Credit Karma), Mensch Labs (acquired by Stripe), Citrus Lane (acquired by Care.com), Teracent (acquired by Google), Hyperic (acquired by VMWare), and Ning (acquired by Mode Media).
Work Experience
Founder at Skip Community
Apr 2021 - Present (5y 7m)
The Skip community is an extension of the Skip Podcast, and is an exclusive network that connects current, aspiring, and former heads of product across the technology landscape. This invitation-only group fosters career advancement for its members by cultivating and disseminating best practices on leading product functions, forging successful partnerships with organizational leaders, structuring product organizations, hiring and scaling product teams, and expanding product portfolios. Moreover, the trust instilled within the community empowers individuals to openly discuss and resolve the most intricate career challenges faced by product leaders. Collectively, members boast hundreds of years of product leadership experience spanning cutting-edge industries such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, cybersecurity, financial technology, e-commerce, healthcare technology, and renewable energy. They are among the most accomplished and influential executives in their respective fields. The Skip community is part of the Skip platform devoted to help tech professionals skip ahead in their career.
Vice President of Product at Meta
Dec 2019 - May 2024 (4y 5m)
I focused on helping scale and expand the Facebook app, used by nearly 3 billion people monthly. As one of its lead product managers, I supported most of its critical products in app during my tenure. These include Facebook's Home surface, which includes its feed and feed ranking, sharing products like stories, messaging products and Facebook Groups. In addition, for two years, I supported Reels including its successful launch on Facebook.
Chief Product Officer at Credit Karma
Apr 2015 - Jul 2019 (4y 3m)
I led Product Management and Design at Credit Karma during my four years. Today Credit Karma is North America's leading consumer financial service that helps over 100M members make financial progress. Unlike most products in FinTech, it's a mobile consumer service that drives weekly engagement. This engagement helps members understand their finances and improve them by taking personalized offers that benefit members and banking partners. This enables Credit Karma to be both mission-based and highly profitable. During my tenure, we launched nearly a dozen new products and scaled our offerings in credit data, credit education as well as the credit card and personal loan businesses, all of which are industry leading. New products included launching two businesses: a mortgage and real estate offering for purchase and refinance, and a complete service for members and their vehicles including a full refinance / purchase / insurance solution. We also delivered a fully mobile federal & state tax filing service, a complete credit and ID monitoring service, rebuilt and scaled the data and infrastructure teams and made a complete overhaul to the core product including a hard pivot to mobile. The product team grew from 10 to 75 people, including 10 senior executives. We established a complete product design team and culture and attracted builders who would thrive at scale and work in a collaborative innovative culture. Diversity was a top priority, enabling the team to have a broad background of skills, past employers and mixed gender (over half of the team are women). Beyond managing the product team, I helped scale the communications and operations for the company as it quadrupled its headcount. I also sponsored three acquisitions, lead our expansion into Los Angeles, and managed the product GMs for core, tax, autos, mortgage and other product innovation areas as the company expanded into business units.
Director of Product Management at Google
Jan 2011 - Jan 2015 (4y)
Google acquired SayNow and I became the product leader for all real-time communication products. This included launching and growing Hangouts, Google's video, voice, and text messaging solution pre-installed in Android and Gmail. Hangouts was one of the largest cross-team projects at Google, spanning nearly every major product area and a key differentiator for Google+. I also product managed Photos, including the apps in Google+, Android, and Google Drive as well as Picasa. And I helped launch and market Hangouts on Air, the live video broadcasting service inside YouTube. Photos and Hangouts were the two largest teams within the Google's social product division and were closely tied into Android, Gmail, YouTube, and Google+. I was responsible for recruiting the product managers, working closely with the engineering and business teams to shape the product roadmap, externally and internally communicate our product releases, understand our users needs and metrics, and work with Google's executive team on overall strategy.
