🎧 The Startup Growth Podcast, Ep. 8: Roger Dickey — He Built Mafia Wars to $10M a Day and Now Makes Bets on 130+ Startups | His Playbook

Roger Dickey is a serial entrepreneur and prolific angel investor with over 130 startup investments under his belt. From humble beginnings coding games as a kid to building Mafia Wars at Zynga—a game that reached a $300 million annual run rate—Roger has scaled multiple companies and exited to giants like Zynga, Home Depot, and private equity. He's also pioneered the "search lab" approach to company building, a structured yet high-velocity process for launching and validating startup ideas. In this episode, we cover:Roger’s early obsession with coding and gamesHow Dope Wars turned into a breakout Facebook game successThe origin and explosive growth of Mafia Wars at ZyngaBuilding a startup that scaled to $100K/day in revenueThe matrix method for startup idea generationWhy distribution, not code, is today’s biggest moatWhy he believes in going deep on one growth channelLessons learned from two successful search labsThe importance of knowing when a product isn't workingWhat he's exploring now across SaaS, games, and socialMuch moreBrought to you by:Fondo – Accounting for startups: https://www.tryfondo.comWhere to Find Roger DickeyX: https://x.com/rogerdickeyLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rogerdickey/Essay – Lessons from 2 Search Labs: https://medium.com/@rogerdickey/lessons-from-2-search-labs-fe07d0bc0fb4'Where to Find David PhillipsX: https://x.com/davjLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davjphillips/In This Episode, We Cover(00:00) Intro and Roger's startup credentials(01:04) Roger’s coding origin story and first “viral” product(05:01) How Dope Wars exploded on Facebook(10:45) Building and scaling Mafia Wars at Zynga(16:00) Product-led growth mechanics and viral loops(21:00) Inventing and reinventing distribution(25:35) How Roger structured his “search lab” process(31:00) Metrics and mindset for early-stage validation(34:55) CAC, LTV, and cracking the S-curve of growth(38:47) Scaling a $100K/day construction tech startup(44:10) The role of deep focus vs. testing across channels(48:05) What Roger’s building next and how he’s thinking about itReferencedLessons from 2 Search Labs (Roger Dickey on Medium): https://medium.com/@rogerdickey/lessons-from-2-search-labs-fe07d0bc0fb4Mafia Wars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_WarsDope Wars (original inspiration): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_Wars_(video_game)Y Combinator Demo Day: https://www.ycombinator.comDropbox Growth Story: https://www.dropbox.com/business/resources/growth-storyStripe Founder Story: https://stripe.com/blog/stripe-series-a