From Credit Karma to Notion: CFO Rama Katkar on Leading Finance Through Every Growth Stage

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Oct 6, 2025

Rama Katkar, the CFO of Notion and former finance leader at Credit Karma and Instacart, discusses building modern finance functions in fast-growing tech companies. She dives into Notion’s innovative pricing strategies and the importance of nurturing free users to drive growth. Rama shares insights on navigating M&A during turbulent times and outlines her forecasting framework for product-led growth. She emphasizes aligning product metrics with financial outcomes and the value of clear storytelling in finance.

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INSIGHT

Free Users Fuel Long-Term Growth

Notion prioritized a robust free individual product because nearly half of paid plans originate from free users.
Investing in free users builds a durable top-of-funnel that predictably converts into paid teams.

ADVICE

Experiment With AI Pricing Before Finalizing

Launch AI as an add-on to learn adoption and cost characteristics before final pricing.
Use that usage data to decide whether to bundle features or gate them behind paid plans.

INSIGHT

Falling Model Costs Changed AI Economics

AI initially became a high-margin growth driver as model costs fell rapidly.
That enabled offering meaningful free AI up to a point and then paygating heavy usage.

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Rama Katkar has helped steer some of the most iconic companies in tech through moments of scale and transformation. Now CFO at Notion and formerly a finance leader at Instacart and Credit Karma, she joins CJ to unpack what it means to build a modern finance function inside a product-led growth company. They discuss how to design finance for velocity without losing discipline, the art of forecasting when virality drives your business, and why Notion’s path to profitability looks different from its peers. Rama also shares lessons from scaling Credit Karma through its $8.1B acquisition by Intuit, what she learned about IPO readiness at Instacart, and how finance leaders can balance ambition with realism in uncertain markets.

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LINKS:

Rama Katkar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramakatkar/

Notion: https://www.notion.so/

CJ on X (@cjgustafson222): https://x.com/cjgustafson222

Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com

RELATED EPISODES:

“Let’s Just See What Breaks” — Intuit’s CFO on Being a Disruptor When You’re Already the Incumbent—

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TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00) Preview – Credit Karma, Instacart, and the Road to Notion

(00:01:14) Welcome & Episode Overview – Rama Katkar, CFO of Notion

(00:02:22) Sponsor – Fidelity Private Shares | Mercury | RightRev

(00:06:10) Interview Begins – From Dinner Conversations to Notion’s Pricing Evolution

(00:09:20) Early Launch of Notion AI and Add-On Pricing

(00:12:40) Community-Led Growth and Notion’s Viral Flywheel

(00:14:38) Sponsor – Tipalti | Aleph | Rillet

(00:18:39) Who Adopts Notion First? Product, Design, and Engineering

(00:20:32) Turning Free Users Into Paid Teams

(00:22:09) Why Notion Added an Enterprise Sales Motion

(00:26:29) The CFO’s Long Game: Balancing Free Users and Cost

(00:30:44) How Notion Experiments With AI Pricing

(00:32:42) Rama’s Three-Part Framework for Forecasting

(00:36:38) Why Notion Plans on a Six-Month Cadence

(00:40:56) Transition – From Forecasting to M&A: Credit Karma’s Wild Ride

(00:41:31) Selling Credit Karma During the Pandemic and DOJ Review

(00:44:04) Closing the Deal With Intuit

(00:49:47) Why the Org Chart Is the Most Important M&A Slide

(00:52:08) The Long-Ass Lightning Round

(00:56:45) Career Advice to Her Younger Self – Context Over Calculation

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SPONSORS:

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#CFOInsights #StartupFinance #NotionHQ #ProductLedGrowth #RunTheNumbersPodcast

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