Building Trust and Raising the Bar: Insights from Serial Entrepreneur Seiki Chen

From Facebook Games to Fintech: Seiki Chen's Entrepreneurial Journey

Seiki Chen's entrepreneurial journey has taken him from the early days of Facebook gaming to his current role as founder and CEO of Runway, a fintech platform revolutionizing how businesses understand and manage their finances. In a wide-ranging conversation, Seiki shared valuable insights on building companies, fostering trust, and evolving as a founder.

The Wild West of Early Facebook Games

Seiki's first taste of entrepreneurial success came in 2007 with the viral hit "Mafia," one of the earliest social games on Facebook's newly launched platform. He recalled the excitement and rapid growth:

"This is like a week later and it's a lot of people from Y Combinator who are founders... We were playing a game of diplomacy and I thought it was really fun. I just thought would it be fun if someone like built a really social game on Facebook's newly announced platform?"

Within months, Seiki went from being a recent college graduate to meeting with tech luminaries like Max Levchin. The game's success led to the creation of "Friends for Sale," which became even more popular:

"So this is late 2007 we were bigger than Twitter and we were the second largest on platform and with still like one and a half people."

This early success taught Seiki valuable lessons about the challenges of scaling a business and the importance of understanding the business side of startups, not just the technical aspects.

The Evolution of a Founder: Learning to Build a Business

Despite his initial success, Seiki realized he had much to learn about building and scaling a company:

"I never thought of myself as any kind of business person... My identity was a technical product person and I think in large part still is. I remember having a Harvard MBA team and having a part-time CFO and getting these spreadsheets and I'm tasked with building this business and I really didn't know the first thing about it."

This experience highlighted the importance of founders developing a well-rounded skill set, including business acumen alongside technical expertise. Seiki emphasized that while technical skills can get a startup off the ground, long-term success requires a deeper understanding of business fundamentals.

The Power of Purpose and Values in Company Building

Aligning Values with Company Purpose

Seiki's experiences have led him to recognize the critical importance of aligning a company's values with its core purpose. At Runway, this alignment is evident in their values:

1. Give a
2. Create clarity
3. Build trust
4. Raise the bar

These values directly reflect Runway's mission to make business finance more understandable and accessible to everyone in an organization. Seiki explained:

"What I really enjoy is when I think about our values at Runway, they also reflect why we're doing it. They literally reflect what the product is supposed to do... It's helping people give a about the business, it's creating clarity within it, it's creating more trust within the different parts of the business so that the performance of the business, the bar can be raised."

The Importance of Trust in Business

Building trust emerged as a central theme in Seiki's approach to leadership and company culture. He shared insights on how to actively cultivate trust within an organization:

"The way to build trust is to put myself out there and tell someone how I'm feeling in the moment and ideally how I'm feeling about them in the moment... Building trust, probably the biggest component of building trust is being open about how you feel."

Seiki emphasized that this level of openness and vulnerability, while sometimes uncomfortable, is essential for creating genuine connections and a high-trust environment.

Leveraging AI and Design to Drive Business Success

Practical Applications of AI in Business

Seiki has been an advocate for using AI to enhance business operations, sharing insights on how Runway integrates these tools:

"We always thought about how we can do that... The model capabilities, they do a lot more than people think, but also for the most sci-fi use cases, they're not quite there yet."

He outlined three key principles for effectively using AI in business:

1. Use AI as a tool to increase team leverage and efficiency
2. Focus on proactive, workflow-integrated AI applications
3. Provide context to AI tools to make them more useful and relevant

The Role of Design in B2B Products

Runway has garnered attention for its innovative approach to design and marketing, even in the traditionally staid world of financial software. Seiki explained their philosophy:

"We as a company, we exist because we think these things should be understandable to people... The way to think about the way we think about how we market is we market it like as a consumer product because it's built for people to use."

This consumer-focused approach, combined with a commitment to raising the bar in design, has helped Runway stand out in a crowded market.

Key Lessons for Entrepreneurs

Throughout the conversation, Seiki shared several valuable insights for aspiring and current entrepreneurs:

1. Embrace self-awareness: Recognize your strengths, weaknesses, and default tendencies as a founder.
2. Balance vision with flexibility: Stay committed to your core vision while remaining flexible on the path to achieve it.
3. Invest in trust-building: Actively work to create a high-trust environment within your team and with customers.
4. Align values with purpose: Ensure your company's values directly support and reflect its core mission.
5. Leverage new technologies thoughtfully: Use tools like AI to increase efficiency, but focus on practical applications.
6. Prioritize design and user experience: Even in B2B markets, a consumer-grade approach to design can be a differentiator.
7. Learn by doing: The best way to develop as an entrepreneur is to build things and gain hands-on experience.

Seiki's journey from social gaming pioneer to fintech innovator demonstrates the power of continuous learning, adaptability, and a commitment to building products that truly serve users' needs. By focusing on trust, clarity, and raising the bar, entrepreneurs can create companies that not only succeed financially but also make a meaningful impact on the way people work and understand their businesses.

Article created from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ourg6eusnwc