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The ERic RIES Show
Curated conversations
At the Long-Term Stock Exchange, we are dedicated to creating a world where businesses are empowered to achieve lasting impact and long-term prosperity.
To foster meaningful conversations, we curate conversations from an ecosystem of leaders, entrepreneurs, and visionaries.
The Eric Ries Show, a podcast produced by Founder and Chair of LTSE Services, Eric Ries, reflects our mission.
The show features thought-provoking conversations with world-class technologists, thought leaders, executives, and others who are working to create a new ecosystem of organizations committed to growth with purpose.
To foster meaningful conversations, we curate conversations from an ecosystem of leaders, entrepreneurs, and visionaries.
The Eric Ries Show, a podcast produced by Founder and Chair of LTSE Services, Eric Ries, reflects our mission.
The show features thought-provoking conversations with world-class technologists, thought leaders, executives, and others who are working to create a new ecosystem of organizations committed to growth with purpose.
Disclaimer: Information contained in this podcast was obtained in part from publicly available sources (including the Eric Ries Show) and not independently verified. The Long-Term Stock Exchange and its affiliated companies do not make any representations or warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy or completeness of the information and do not sponsor, approve, or endorse any of the content herein, all of which is presented solely for informational and educational purposes. Nothing herein constitutes an offer to sell, a solicitation to buy any security, or a recommendation of any security or trading practice.
Some portions of the podcast may have been edited for the purpose of length or clarity.
From the Eric Ries Show:
Hard-Won Secrets for Scaling Innovations in Finance, Gaming, and AI with Siqi Chen (Runway, Zynga)
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In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I’m joined by Siqi Chen, a four-time founder and the CEO and CFO of his latest venture, Runway. Runway offers a modern, user-friendly platform for financial modeling, headcount planning, and departmental budgeting—proudly branding itself as “the finance platform your team doesn’t hate.” With its distinctive marketing and brand-building approach, Runway has garnered significant attention. (Full disclosure: I’m an investor in the company.)
Siqi and I discuss his journey from building some of the most viral social games in Silicon Valley to founding Runway. We also delve into the challenges faced by technical founders, the art of viewing a business as a product, and how Siqi has sharpened his strategic thinking. Other key topics include:
• Lessons from founding Serious Business
• Critiques of Zynga’s strategy and the story of selling to them
• Practical advice for building trust
• Insights into Leaders in Tech and Stanford’s GSB program
• The importance of crafting clear, universally understood company values
• An overview of Runway’s platform, mission, and values
• A fresh take on the fallacy of work-life balance
• And so much more!
—
Brought to you by:
Vanta – Automate compliance, manage risk, and prove trust—continuously. Get $1,000 off.
—
Where to find Siqi Chen:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siqic/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blader/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/founder/
Where to find Eric:
• Newsletter: https://ericries.carrd.co/
• Podcast: https://ericriesshow.com/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theericriesshow
—
In This Episode We Cover:
(00:00) Meet Siqi Chen
(02:30) How Siqi came up with the idea for Mafia and the early years of gaming on Facebook
(05:10) The early investors in Mafia
(05:36) Siqi’s meeting with Keith Rabois and Max Levchin
(08:15) How Siqi was influenced by the Lean Startup approach
(11:04) How quickly Siqi’s career took off after moving to San Francisco
(11:48) Founding Serious Business and creating Friends for Sale
(14:20) How Serious Business raised $5 million
(16:20) Why Serious Business sold to Zynga
(17:20) The importance of prioritizing the business as much as the product
(19:11) Siqi’s learnings and advice for new founders
(23:25) What Siqi learned working at Zynga
(27:18) Siqi’s time running product
(29:20) Criticisms of Zynga and how they lost Eric’s trust
(33:42) The importance of trust and maintaining vision and mission
(39:15) An overview of Runway
(44:38) What inspired Siqi to create Runway
(50:43) What Siqi learned from user interviews
(52:07) An example of time wasting inside a company
(53:24) The values at Runway and why they changed
(58:35) Why you should write reflective values after having a high-performance team
(1:00:40) How Leaders in Tech shaped Siqi’s thoughts on values and building trust
(1:03:13) How open feedback builds trust
(1:08:20) The purpose of Runway
(1:11:34) Siqi’s struggles with strategy planning
(1:13:31) A top down approach to entrepreneurship and why it’s not common
(1:16:38) The importance of employees understanding their contributions and impact
(1:18:55) How Runway leverages AI
(1:22:12) Runway’s dramatic launch with a timed lock
(1:23:04) How Runway communicates value to customers
(1:24:54) Runway’s process for brand building and high-quality design
(1:28:40) Lightning round
Referenced
- Runway: https://runway.com/
- Powerset: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerset_(company)
- Chris Wanstrath on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/defunkt/
- Lukas Biewald on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lbiewald/
- Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/
- Diplomacy: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/483/diplomacy
- Max Levchin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxlevchin/
- Keith Rabois on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith/
- Slide: https://google.fandom.com/wiki/Slide.com
- Paul Graham’s website: https://www.paulgraham.com/
- SuperPoke!: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperPoke
- 5 Why’s video: https://hbr.org/video/2189146765001/5-whys
- Serious Business: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/serious-business
- Alex Le on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lealex/
- Naval Ravikant on X: https://x.com/naval
- Jeremy Liew on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremyliew/
- Zynga: https://www.zynga.com/
- Playfish: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playfish
- Mark Pincus on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markpincus/
- Supercell: https://supercell.com/en/
- Sandbox: https://sandboxvr.com/
- Figma: https://www.figma.com/
- Notion: https://www.notion.com/
- Leaders in Tech: https://leadersintech.org
- Joe Greenstein on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joegreenstein/
- GSB program at Stanford: https://grow.stanford.edu/browse/stanford-lead-online-business-program/
- Inside Anduril’s Comms Strategy: 10 Rules for Mission-Driven Founders: https://www.piratewires.com/p/anduril-comms-strategy-early-days
- Contrarian by Design: Wade Foster’s Vision Behind Zapier’s $5B Business: https://www.ericriesshow.com/wade-foster-zapier/Contrarian%20by%20Design:%20Wade%20Foster%E2%80%99s%20Vision%20Behind%20Zapier%E2%80%99s%20$5B%20Business
- Joel Spolsky on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelspolsky/
- Gagan Biyani’s LinkedIn post about the Runway launch: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/gaganbiyani_runways-launch-last-week-might-have-seemed-activity-7219348235885129728-9Isi/
- Linear: https://linear.app/
- Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character): https://www.amazon.com/Surely-Feynman-Adventures-Curious-Character/dp/0393316041
You can find the transcript and references at https://www.ericriesshow.com/
—
Production and marketing by https://penname.co/.
Eric may be an investor in the companies discussed.
Show Notes
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I’m joined by Siqi Chen, a four-time founder and the CEO and CFO of his latest venture, Runway. Runway offers a modern, user-friendly platform for financial modeling, headcount planning, and departmental budgeting—proudly branding itself as “the finance platform your team doesn’t hate.” With its distinctive marketing and brand-building approach, Runway has garnered significant attention. (Full disclosure: I’m an investor in the company.)
Siqi and I discuss his journey from building some of the most viral social games in Silicon Valley to founding Runway. We also delve into the challenges faced by technical founders, the art of viewing a business as a product, and how Siqi has sharpened his strategic thinking. Other key topics include:
• Lessons from founding Serious Business
• Critiques of Zynga’s strategy and the story of selling to them
• Practical advice for building trust
• Insights into Leaders in Tech and Stanford’s GSB program
• The importance of crafting clear, universally understood company values
• An overview of Runway’s platform, mission, and values
• A fresh take on the fallacy of work-life balance
• And so much more!
—
Brought to you by:
Vanta – Automate compliance, manage risk, and prove trust—continuously. Get $1,000 off.
—
Where to find Siqi Chen:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siqic/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blader/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/founder/
Where to find Eric:
• Newsletter: https://ericries.carrd.co/
• Podcast: https://ericriesshow.com/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theericriesshow
—
In This Episode We Cover:
(00:00) Meet Siqi Chen
(02:30) How Siqi came up with the idea for Mafia and the early years of gaming on Facebook
(05:10) The early investors in Mafia
(05:36) Siqi’s meeting with Keith Rabois and Max Levchin
(08:15) How Siqi was influenced by the Lean Startup approach
(11:04) How quickly Siqi’s career took off after moving to San Francisco
(11:48) Founding Serious Business and creating Friends for Sale
(14:20) How Serious Business raised $5 million
(16:20) Why Serious Business sold to Zynga
(17:20) The importance of prioritizing the business as much as the product
(19:11) Siqi’s learnings and advice for new founders
(23:25) What Siqi learned working at Zynga
(27:18) Siqi’s time running product
(29:20) Criticisms of Zynga and how they lost Eric’s trust
(33:42) The importance of trust and maintaining vision and mission
(39:15) An overview of Runway
(44:38) What inspired Siqi to create Runway
(50:43) What Siqi learned from user interviews
(52:07) An example of time wasting inside a company
(53:24) The values at Runway and why they changed
(58:35) Why you should write reflective values after having a high-performance team
(1:00:40) How Leaders in Tech shaped Siqi’s thoughts on values and building trust
(1:03:13) How open feedback builds trust
(1:08:20) The purpose of Runway
(1:11:34) Siqi’s struggles with strategy planning
(1:13:31) A top down approach to entrepreneurship and why it’s not common
(1:16:38) The importance of employees understanding their contributions and impact
(1:18:55) How Runway leverages AI
(1:22:12) Runway’s dramatic launch with a timed lock
(1:23:04) How Runway communicates value to customers
(1:24:54) Runway’s process for brand building and high-quality design
(1:28:40) Lightning round
Referenced
- Runway: https://runway.com/
- Powerset: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerset_(company)
- Chris Wanstrath on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/defunkt/
- Lukas Biewald on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lbiewald/
- Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/
- Diplomacy: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/483/diplomacy
- Max Levchin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxlevchin/
- Keith Rabois on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith/
- Slide: https://google.fandom.com/wiki/Slide.com
- Paul Graham’s website: https://www.paulgraham.com/
- SuperPoke!: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperPoke
- 5 Why’s video: https://hbr.org/video/2189146765001/5-whys
- Serious Business: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/serious-business
- Alex Le on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lealex/
- Naval Ravikant on X: https://x.com/naval
- Jeremy Liew on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremyliew/
- Zynga: https://www.zynga.com/
- Playfish: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playfish
- Mark Pincus on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markpincus/
- Supercell: https://supercell.com/en/
- Sandbox: https://sandboxvr.com/
- Figma: https://www.figma.com/
- Notion: https://www.notion.com/
- Leaders in Tech: https://leadersintech.org
- Joe Greenstein on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joegreenstein/
- GSB program at Stanford: https://grow.stanford.edu/browse/stanford-lead-online-business-program/
- Inside Anduril’s Comms Strategy: 10 Rules for Mission-Driven Founders: https://www.piratewires.com/p/anduril-comms-strategy-early-days
- Contrarian by Design: Wade Foster’s Vision Behind Zapier’s $5B Business: https://www.ericriesshow.com/wade-foster-zapier/Contrarian%20by%20Design:%20Wade%20Foster%E2%80%99s%20Vision%20Behind%20Zapier%E2%80%99s%20$5B%20Business
- Joel Spolsky on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelspolsky/
- Gagan Biyani’s LinkedIn post about the Runway launch: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/gaganbiyani_runways-launch-last-week-might-have-seemed-activity-7219348235885129728-9Isi/
- Linear: https://linear.app/
- Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character): https://www.amazon.com/Surely-Feynman-Adventures-Curious-Character/dp/0393316041
You can find the transcript and references at https://www.ericriesshow.com/
—
Production and marketing by https://penname.co/.
Eric may be an investor in the companies discussed.
Disclaimer
The information is provided for informational and educational purposes only, and nothing contained herein should be construed as investment advice, either on behalf of a particular security or an overall investment strategy. Information about the company is provided by the company, or comes from the companies’ public filings and is not independently verified by LTSE. Neither LTSE nor any of its affiliates makes any recommendation to buy or sell any security or any representation about the financial condition of any company. Statements regarding LTSE-listed companies are not guarantees of future performance. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Investors should undertake their own due diligence and carefully evaluate companies before investing. Advice from a securities professional is strongly advised.
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