Cambrian Fintech with Rex Salisbury

Building Credit Karma with Ken Lin, Founder & CEO

Mar 10, 2023

Ken Lin, Founder and CEO of Credit Karma, talks about the challenges of building the company during the Great Recession and the Covid pandemic.

37:20

Creator website

Episode guests

Ken Lin

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Episode notes

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Quick takeaways

Credit Karma grew despite challenges, including raising funds during the Great Recession and selling during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Credit Karma's success came from using remnant media for advertising and focusing on tailored financial product access.

Deep dives

Building Credit Karma

Ken Lin shares the backstory of Credit Karma, a platform that provides free credit scores and helps consumers find the right financial products. He explains how the idea formed and the challenges they faced in securing partnerships with credit bureaus.

Introduction

3min

Formation of Credit Karma and Importance of Credit Scores

2min

Struggling to Secure Funding During the Great Recession

14min

The Impact of Commercials and Partnering with the Bureaus

3min

Explosive Growth and a Near-Death Experience

3min

A Critical Meeting and a Strong Partnership

13min

Building Credit Karma was not easy. Ken raised the company’s first major round in 2009 during the Great Recession and in 2020 navigated the sale of the business during the early days of the covid pandemic, during which Credit Karma saw dramatic declines in revenue and faced the prospect of layoffs. But the company has come through those events and more stronger than ever. Despite the pandemic, Intuit closed the acquisition for a record setting $8 billion in late 2020. Since then, Credit Karma has continued to grow and is projected to deliver over $1.5 billion in revenue in FY 2022. Even more importantly, Credit Karma continues to create huge benefits for their 110+ million members by bringing transparency to credit scores, which in turn affords tailored access to the best financial products–across card, mortgage, auto and more–for their unique situation.

█ Guest

Ken Lin, Founder & CEO

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kennethjlin

█ Moderator

Rex Salisbury, Founder @ Cambrian

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rexsalisb...

https://twitter.com/rexsalisbury

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