Meet Vatsal.

He’s a renowned product leader, yet that’s not why he’s unique. His ability to translate mathematics, computer science, and game design elements into the broader business context and building products is why he's been deemed an expert. He has scaled multiple businesses by creating an inspiring vision and strategy, hiring talented leaders, setting up the mechanisms, and instilling a sense of customer obsession and data-informed decision-making in product development.

20 years of experience at the bleeding edge of innovation and driving customer value

$3B

Cumulative Revenue

Customers

Video Games & Consumer

Cloud Computing Services

20+

Leaders mentored

1000+

People led

200+

Experiments

20+

Investments in Startups

Startups, Pre-IPO and Big Tech across Consumer, Gaming and Cloud Computing

Engineering Bluetooth and USB

Corporate Strategy to drive Pre-IPO growth

Product Management in Virtual Reality

General Manager and Head of Games Technology and Simulations

Chief Product Officer in eSports and Real Money Competitions

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Head of Studios in Free-to-Play Mobile Gaming

Vatsal's Journey

Creating Bluetooth standards

Vatsal created the first software for Bluetooth technology in Windows OS in 2004. He was also nominated to the board of directors for Bluetooth Special Interest Group, an industry-wide standard body serving to make the technology more usable for the entire industry. His technical contributions to Bluetooth protocols, improving industry-wide interoperability, and ease of use helped make Bluetooth the standard short-range wireless. The work was done in collaboration with (sometimes) competing interests across industry players, including Microsoft, Nokia, Intel, and others. His work at Microsoft and Bluetooth SIG drove the early widespread adoption of Bluetooth in headsets and input devices, and it is used by billions of customers today.

His next stop was online gaming, first at Zynga and then at Storm8. At Zynga, his work on corporate strategy positioned the company to establish a foothold in mobile and International and go public. At Storm8, he pioneered a data-informed approach to developing creative content and mobile games from the concept phase to launching and growing games. His team created sophisticated data science algorithms for reaching and retaining players and internal platforms for making and testing games 2-4X faster than the norm. As Head of Studios and GM, head led a team of over 200 and launched over 20 games, reaching well over a billion downloads and a billion in lifetime revenue. Many of these games, such as Bubble Mania, and Candy Mania, were played by over 100M players and defined the category of casual games on mobile. Vatsal also came up with unique ways to drive the discovery and distribution of new games among players, including app store optimizations, paid user acquisition, and network-wide cross promotions, which played a big role in the success of these games. He played a crucial role in growing revenues to over USD 150M+. Storm8 has an eventual sale of the company for over $400M USD.

Disrupting Mobile Gaming by inventing games-as-service

Launching first mass-market Virtual Reality

Since 2015, Vatsal has focused on empowering developers and creators through breakthrough innovations in VR, 3D, cloud computing, and real money platform development. First, he was part of the team which launched Oculus. His product vision, deep product, and technical knowledge helped Oculus to create a transformational virtual reality product. His work on content discovery, app stores, and developer services was invaluable to the successful launch of multiple products at Oculus, which have cumulatively exceeded over $1.5B in lifetime revenue.

Later, he joined Amazon Web Services to work in the areas of edge computing, and 3D, and game technologies. He founded Amazon game publishing services to launch and grow games, starting with Amazon Game Studio games. His work was instrumental in establishing several games, including New World. He also led and grew AWS Game Tech, the division of AWS creating services for games and simulation developers. Under his leadership, AWS launched the Open 3D initiative with Linux foundation (the most extensive gaming open-source project) and the growth of multiple cloud services for gaming and simulation. His initiatives have had tremendous commercial success. His work has generated 100s of millions of revenue and is used by 1000s of customers, including some of the largest game publishers.

Bringing Cloud Computing to Gaming

Public Company Leadership

Most recently, he served as the Chief Product Officer at Skillz, managing both product and technology teams of more than 250 people. As a newly minted public company, Vatsal helped level up the leadership team, created a three-year product vision and strategy, and introduced several mechanisms to running operations and product development. He also led the creation of the company’s leadership principles. As the global economy took an unexpected turn in 2022, he worked alongside the executive team to optimize the cost structure and reorganize the company to reduce the burn rate and increase runaway.

Vatsal’s professional achievements are impressive, yet that's not what makes him remarkable. Vatsal is an ambitious and bold businessman, but he's not abrasive. He's respectful and calm, and he has a deep understanding of human psychology. That's an essential skill for any leader. To keep people engaged in your game, in your business, and invested in the experience you've designed, you need to meet all of their basic human needs. We need excitement and growth, and a sense of belonging. We need to feel heard, free, and fulfilled. His intensity for perfection stems from this emotional awareness and his extreme customer obsession and drive to win the fundamental strategy driving his success. He has the empathy to foresee people's needs and the intelligence to build them. That level of insight makes brands, enterprises, and cultural movements.