about serious business
Serious Business is a leading social games developer for the Facebook platform. Headquartered in San Francisco, and backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners, the company combines unique game concepts with rigorous analysis to create highly social games enjoyed by millions of users. Our flagship game, Friends for Sale!, is played by over 6 million people every month.
The first decade of the internet was fun. This decade is going to be Serious.
the serious team
siqi chen, founder and ceo
One of the original developers of social games, Siqi Chen is responsible for setting the overall strategic vision for Serious Business and guiding the development of new, world-class social games.
Before founding Serious Business, Siqi designed products for Powerset, a next generation search tool acquired by Microsoft, and Veoh, a leading internet video content site. At Powerset, he was the creator of Powerlabs, social network that became a key proving ground for the company’s emerging products. The Big Chief has also spent time working on machine vision technology at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL). Boom.
alex le, founder and cto
Alex Le sets the overall direction for the company’s technical architecture.
Previously, Alex served as a software engineer for Powerset (acquired by Microsoft). Before Powerset, Alex was a software engineer at Yellowpages.com, where he managed the site’s transition to a Ruby on Rails infrastructure, making it one of the worlds largest Ruby on Rails sites. Well known as a scaling guru, Alex speaks at conferences around the world. What?!
ryan j. ferrier, coo
Ryan oversees business operations, human resources, and finance at Serious Business.
Before Serious Business, Ryan was a member of the founding team at Powerset (acquired by Microsoft), where he managed personnel and operations for a team that grew by 800% in a year’s time. Specializing in scaling culture, systems, and processes during times of rapid growth, Ryan advises early stage companies on their operational growth plans. Word.
charles hudson, vp of business development
Charles is in charge of monetization and business partnerships at Serious Business.
Prior to joining Serious Business, Charles was the Sr. Director for Business Development at Gaia Online, a leading online hangout for teens and young adults. Prior to Gaia, Charles worked in New Business Development at Google and focused on new partnership opportunities for early-stage products in the advertising, mobile, and e-commerce markets. Charles also spent several years working at In-Q-Tel, the strategic venture capital group for the Central Intelligence Agency.
In addition to working at Serious Business, Charles produces a series of technology conferences focused on the intersection of the Internet and gaming spaces. Nuff’ said.
mike jimenez, vp of engineering
Mike is responsible for managing the company’s day-to-day engineering operations and the execution of the company’s product development roadmap.
Mike brings over 15 years of engineering and engineering management experience to Serious Business. Previously he managed engineering at BitTorrent, a company that provides consumers and enterprises with leading-edge file sharing software. Prior to BitTorrent, Michael was the Chief Architect at CyberSource, a luminary in the electronic commerce services industry, where he designed and developed the company's core transaction processing platform.
In addition to his commitments at Serious Business, Mike plays an advisory role for technology startups in both the United States and Asia. Holla.