Runway, a next-generation Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) platform, had an exciting problem: too many leads. After launching out of early access in July 2024, their website saw an overwhelming number of demo requests—sometimes dozens per minute. It was a dream scenario for any startup, but it also introduced a major challenge: how could a lean team efficiently qualify and respond to the influx of leads without hiring additional staff?
Instead of scrambling to scale their sales team overnight, Runway turned to Zapier to automate the lead qualification process, leveraging AI to ensure that only the most promising leads made it to their sales reps.
A surge in demand with no way to keep up
Runway's product launch was a success by any measure. The company's website featured a prominent call-to-action for visitors to book a demo, and the response was overwhelming.
"We were getting a few dozen signups every minute," says Siqi Chen, Runway's founder and CEO. "It was amazing. But with one sales person and two customer success people, we weren't prepared for that kind of inbound volume."
Runway's team didn't have a structured way to qualify leads at scale. Every inbound request was treated equally, meaning valuable leads from high-intent businesses were buried in a flood of unfiltered signups.
"We're a small team, and we just didn't have the capacity to manually sift through every request," says Siqi. "We needed a way to automatically qualify leads so we could focus on the ones that really mattered."
Automating lead qualification with Zapier and AI
To solve this, Runway built an automated and AI-powered sales development workflow using Zapier. Here's how it works:
Capturing leads: When someone signs up for a demo, their information is stored in a Retool database, which triggers a Zapier webhook to kick off the process.
Filtering out non-business emails: The Zap first checks for free email domains (like Gmail or Yahoo) using Zapier's Filter and Looping features. Then, it filters out all free email domains using ChatGPT. Runway prioritizes corporate domains to ensure they're talking to potential customers, not just curious browsers.
Enriching data with Clearbit: Once an email passes the initial filter, Clearbit pulls in additional company information, like size, location, and industry.
AI-powered lead scoring with ChatGPT: A highly detailed ChatGPT prompt analyzes the lead, summarizing key details into a short snippet that's shared with the sales team. The AI evaluates factors like company revenue, employee count, and industry fit, then categorizes leads as "Qualified" or "Unqualified."
Personalized email drafting: For every qualified lead, ChatGPT drafts a contextual, witty, and engaging email tailored to that prospect's business. The email is saved as a draft in Gmail, so a salesperson only needs to review and hit send.
Here's an example of how it plays out:
If Jeff Bezos at Amazon signs up for a Runway demo, the Zap:
Confirms Amazon as a qualified lead.
Creates a brief with company details on Amazon and Jeff.
Generates a personalized email:
"Hey Jeff, thanks for signing up for Runway. In case you forgot who we are, you probably found us through my Twitter. We're excited to see if Runway can put some pep in Amazon's financial modeling steps. But don't worry, we won't count on any rockets from Blue Origin to blast off our growth."
All of this happens in seconds—without a single manual touch.
More leads, faster responses, and no additional headcount
By automating its lead qualification process with Zapier, Runway has significantly streamlined its sales workflow. The results speak for themselves:
Hundreds of leads processed daily—no more backlog or lost opportunities.
New sales hires avoided—automation does what would have required additional full-time employees.
Faster response times—qualified leads receive a near-instant, personalized email.
"We're a team of 40 people right now, but without a culture of automation, we'd definitely be 60-70," Siqi says.
