How we Gained 3 Million Users in Just 3 Months! | Gamma CEO Grant Lee & Jon Noronha

EO
15 Sept 202315:39

Summary

TLDRGrant Lee, CEO of Gamma, discusses the company's mission to revolutionize idea sharing and presentation beyond traditional tools like PowerPoint. With a focus on user-centric design and leveraging AI, Gamma aims to simplify the creation process, enhance creativity, and empower users worldwide. The company's journey includes learning from user feedback, iterating on product features, and embracing AI to solve real-world problems in presentation creation, leading to significant user growth and engagement.

Takeaways

  • 🔍 Start with a problem you're passionate about before applying new technology.
  • 🌟 Grant Lee, CEO of Gamma, aims to reimagine how people share and present ideas beyond traditional tools like PowerPoint.
  • 🌐 Gamma has millions of users globally, with Korea and Japan being among the fastest-growing regions.
  • 🚀 Early adopters are eager to embrace new technology to enhance creativity.
  • 💼 Grant's background in consulting and investment banking provided insights into scaling businesses.
  • 📈 Optimizely's hyper-growth phase taught the importance of experimentation at every business stage.
  • 🤝 Co-founder John Norona's experience in product management at Microsoft shaped Gamma's user-centric approach.
  • 🧠 AI should be applied to solve existing problems rather than creating problems for AI to solve.
  • 💡 Gamma's initial product was basic, focusing on iterative improvement based on user feedback and self-use.
  • 📊 Quantitative analysis and qualitative user research were crucial for understanding user behavior and product improvement.
  • 💰 The introduction of AI capabilities in Gamma significantly enhanced user engagement and reduced the activation energy for new users.
  • 🌱 AI is positioned as a partner to unlock human creativity, offering unlimited patience and creativity in Gamma's toolset.

Q & A

  • What is the main issue Grant Lee addresses in the script?

    -Grant Lee addresses the traditional method of using tools like PowerPoint and slides to encapsulate and communicate ideas, suggesting that there is a need for a new set of building blocks that can make the process feel new, easier, and enable the creation of output that is impossible with current tools.

  • What is Gamma and what does it aim to do differently from traditional presentation tools?

    -Gamma is a platform that reimagines the way people share and present their ideas. It aims to provide a new set of building blocks to achieve communication goals in a way that feels new, is easier, and allows for the generation of output that is not possible with current tools like PowerPoint.

  • Why are countries like Korea and Japan mentioned as fast-growing markets for Gamma?

    -Korea and Japan are mentioned as fast-growing markets for Gamma because users in these countries are embracing the idea of new building blocks for creativity. They are eager to adopt new technology and are willing to be early adopters, which allows them to free up their creativity in ways they couldn't do in the past.

  • What personal background does Grant Lee have that influenced his entrepreneurial journey?

    -Grant Lee's personal background includes family members who were entrepreneurs, such as an uncle who started a chain of bakeries and parents who ran their own restaurant. This early exposure to entrepreneurship instilled in him a spirit to start his own business.

  • What was the turning point for Grant Lee that led him to join Optimizely?

    -The turning point for Grant Lee was when he decided to apply the knowledge he gained from consulting and investment banking to an earlier stage venture. He was advised by a mentor to join a rapidly growing company, or 'rocket ship,' which led him to join Optimizely as the first finance hire.

  • What is the significance of experimentation in building a successful business according to the script?

    -Experimentation is significant in building a successful business because it allows businesses to learn from users at every stage, starting with qualitative feedback and iterating on initial concepts. It's about understanding that shipping a product or feature is the beginning of the learning process, not the end, and that continuous improvement is key.

  • How did John Norona's background in product management at Microsoft influence his role at Gamma?

    -John Norona's background in product management at Microsoft, where he learned about quantitative analysis and metrics, influenced his role at Gamma by focusing on understanding how people use products and their challenges. This led him to develop strengths in both quantitative analysis and qualitative user research.

  • What was the initial challenge Gamma faced in terms of user adoption and how did they overcome it?

    -The initial challenge Gamma faced was the 'blank page problem,' where users had to invest time to see the benefits of the platform. They overcame this by integrating AI, which allowed users to experience the 'magic' of the platform quickly, thus transforming their onboarding and activation process.

  • How did the introduction of AI capabilities impact Gamma's user engagement and monetization?

    -The introduction of AI capabilities led to a significant increase in user engagement and monetization. Users who embraced the AI features worked faster and unlocked new levels of creativity, leading to a higher willingness to pay for the service. This shift made monetization a top priority for the company.

  • What is the core competency that Gamma aims to achieve according to the script?

    -The core competency that Gamma aims to achieve is helping people express ideas easily. This involves empowering creativity for non-designers, creating a frictionless user experience, and ensuring performance and reliability in the platform.

  • What is Grant Lee's perspective on the role of AI in product development?

    -Grant Lee believes that AI should not be the starting point for product development. Instead, teams should identify customer problems or friction points and then consider whether AI is the best tool to address those issues. He emphasizes a customer-obsessed approach rather than a technology-first mentality.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Founding Gamma: A New Approach to Idea Presentation

Grant Lee, CEO and co-founder of Gamma, emphasizes the importance of starting with a problem when introducing new technology. He shares his personal journey from growing up with entrepreneurial influences to working in consulting and investment banking, which provided him with insights into scaling businesses. His experience at Optimizely, where he learned the value of experimentation at various business stages, was pivotal. There, he met his co-founders and discovered the universal problem of inefficient presentation creation tools. They aimed to revolutionize how ideas are shared and presented by creating an easier, more creative alternative to traditional methods like PowerPoint. Gamma's user base grew rapidly, especially in East Asian countries, where users were eager to embrace new technologies that could enhance their creativity.

05:00

🔍 Identifying and Solving the Presentation Problem

The paragraph discusses the importance of identifying a problem you're passionate about before applying new technology. It details the process of observing and understanding the struggles people face while creating presentations, which led to the creation of Gamma. The initial product was basic, allowing users to create simple presentations with text and images. Early feedback was challenging to interpret due to the personal relationships with the users, so the team relied on quantitative data to understand usage patterns and areas for improvement. They iterated on the product based on this data, making it 10% better each week until it was significantly improved. The first public exposure was through a private beta, which gradually grew through word of mouth. A strategic Product Hunt launch further accelerated user acquisition, leading to thousands of sign-ups and validating the product's appeal.

10:01

💡 Integrating AI to Enhance Creativity and Usability

After the initial public beta launch without AI capabilities, the Gamma team recognized the need to redesign the product with AI at its core. They introduced AI to streamline the creation process, which received overwhelmingly positive feedback from early users. AI significantly reduced the activation energy for new users, allowing them to quickly experience the product's benefits. This led to a surge in usage and engagement. The team also had to consider the cost implications of AI and implemented a credit system to manage usage. The strong demand for additional credits indicated a willingness to pay, prompting a shift in focus to monetization. They quickly developed a monetization system, which validated the market's willingness to pay for the service. The team's efforts culminated in self-serve pricing, surpassing 1000 paying customers, and experiencing rapid growth, including 50,000 new users in a single day.

15:04

🌟 Gamma's Vision: Empowering Creative Expression

The final paragraph outlines the vision for Gamma as a tool that empowers anyone to create and share beautiful content with ease. It highlights the company's core competency in facilitating easy idea expression and the different roles within the team, from designers focusing on empowering creativity to engineers ensuring a smooth user experience. The speaker expresses excitement about the potential of AI to enhance human creativity and sees Gamma as a partner that combines unlimited creativity with patience, enabling users to achieve more within their projects. The speaker also reflects on the broader implications of AI in the market, advocating for a customer-centric approach to AI application development rather than technology-pushing product creation.

Mindmap

Keywords

💡Problem-solving

Problem-solving is the process of identifying a problem and finding a solution to it. In the video, the emphasis is on starting with a problem rather than a technology, which is a key principle in entrepreneurship. The speaker suggests that one should be passionate about the problem they are trying to solve, as this will drive the long-term commitment necessary for a successful business. An example from the script is the creation of Gamma, which was designed to solve the problem of traditional presentation tools being inadequate for modern communication needs.

💡Passion

Passion refers to a strong and barely controllable emotion or feeling. In the context of the video, passion is highlighted as a driving force for entrepreneurs to tackle problems they are deeply interested in. The speaker, Grant Lee, suggests that one's personal passion for a problem is crucial for the long-term success of a business venture. This is exemplified by his own journey, where his family's entrepreneurial spirit and his personal interest in business led him to co-found Gamma.

💡Innovation

Innovation is the process of translating an idea or invention into a good or service that creates value or for which customers will pay. The video discusses how Gamma is reimagining the way people share and present their ideas, which is an innovative approach to traditional presentation tools like PowerPoint. Innovation is central to the company's mission, as they aim to create new building blocks that make communication easier and more effective.

💡Experimentation

Experimentation in the video refers to the act of trying out new ideas or methods to see if they will work. It is a core principle in the development of a business, as highlighted by the speaker's experience at Optimizely. The video emphasizes that successful businesses embrace a spirit of experimentation early on, using it to learn from users and iterate on products. This is illustrated by the iterative process Gamma went through to improve its product based on user feedback and usage patterns.

💡User Experience (UX)

User experience (UX) is all about how a person feels when interacting with a system, product, or service. In the video, UX is critical to Gamma's mission of creating a new set of tools that are easier and more delightful to use than traditional presentation software. The company focuses on understanding user pain points and creating a frictionless experience, which is evident in their product development and迭代 process.

💡Product Hunt

Product Hunt is a website that features new products in the tech industry, often serving as a platform for startups to launch and gain visibility for their products. In the video, Gamma used Product Hunt for their public launch, which resulted in a significant spike in user sign-ups and helped validate their product-market fit. This example illustrates the importance of strategic product launches in gaining user traction and market recognition.

💡Monetization

Monetization refers to the process of turning a product or service into income. The video discusses how Gamma initially offered their AI capabilities for free but later realized the high marginal costs associated with AI. They then introduced a credit system to limit usage and eventually moved to a self-serve pricing model, which allowed them to monetize their product effectively. This shows the evolution of their business model in response to user demand and the costs of providing their service.

💡AI Capabilities

AI capabilities in the video refer to the use of artificial intelligence to enhance the functionality and user experience of a product. Gamma integrated AI into their product to help users create presentations more efficiently and with greater creativity. The introduction of AI capabilities was a game-changer for Gamma, significantly improving user engagement and onboarding by reducing the activation energy for new users.

💡Customer Obsession

Customer obsession is a business philosophy that prioritizes customer needs and experiences above all else. In the video, the speaker suggests that successful AI applications come from teams that are customer-obsessed and use AI as a tool to address customer problems. This approach is contrasted with those who start with AI and then look for problems to solve, highlighting the importance of putting the customer at the center of product development.

💡Activation Energy

Activation energy, in the context of the video, refers to the initial effort required for a user to start using a product and experience its benefits. The video discusses how Gamma's AI capabilities reduced the activation energy for users, allowing them to quickly see the value of the product. This is an important concept in product design, as lowering the barrier to entry can significantly increase user adoption and satisfaction.

💡International Growth

International growth refers to the expansion of a business or product into global markets. The video mentions how Gamma has seen significant growth in countries like Korea and Japan, indicating that their product resonates with users worldwide. This highlights the potential for technology products to transcend geographical boundaries and achieve global success.

Highlights

Starting a business requires passion and long-term commitment.

Gamma reimagines the way people share and present ideas, aiming to replace traditional tools like PowerPoint.

Gamma's mission is to build new building blocks for easier and more creative idea communication.

The company has millions of users worldwide, with Korea and Japan being the fastest-growing markets.

Gamma's users are eager to embrace new technology and creativity-enhancing tools.

Grant Lee's entrepreneurial spirit was influenced by family members who ran their own businesses.

Lee's career in consulting and investment banking provided insights into scaling businesses.

Optimizely was a significant learning experience, emphasizing the importance of experimentation in business.

Experimentation is key to understanding user needs and iterating products effectively.

John Norona's background in computer science and product management at Microsoft shaped his approach to user-centric design.

Gamma was born out of the need for a better way to communicate ideas at work.

Product management at Gamma focuses on constant curiosity and understanding user challenges.

AI should be applied to solve existing problems rather than searching for problems for new technology.

Gamma's early product versions were rudimentary but served as a foundation for iterative improvement.

User feedback and product usage patterns were critical in Gamma's early development.

Gamma's founders relied on their own product for internal use to drive improvements.

The company's first public beta launch on Product Hunt was a significant milestone.

Gamma's AI capabilities were introduced to enhance user creativity and streamline the design process.

AI integration transformed Gamma's user onboarding and activation, reducing the activation energy for new users.

Gamma's monetization strategy evolved from a hacky prototype to a self-serve pricing model.

The company has seen sustained growth, recently surpassing 50,000 new users in a single day.

Gamma aims to be the tool that empowers anyone to create beautiful content to share ideas.

Transcripts

play00:00

Before you rush into trying to apply new technology,

play00:02

start with a problem.

play00:03

Find a problem or a space you're personally passionate about.

play00:07

Because I aside, if you're going to be starting a business to solve a problem,

play00:11

you're going to be invested in it for many, many years.

play00:16

My name is Grant Lee.

play00:18

I am the CEO and co-founder of Gamma reimagined the way people share

play00:23

and present their ideas.

play00:24

Traditionally, people use tools like PowerPoint and slides

play00:27

to encapsulate their thinking and to then communicate that with others.

play00:31

At Gamma, we're trying to build a new set of building blocks

play00:33

to help you achieve the same goals, but do it in a way that feels new, feels easier,

play00:38

and allows you to generate output that is impossible with current tools.

play00:42

We have millions of users worldwide.

play00:45

Korea, Japan are among some of our fastest growing countries

play00:49

users in this country is really embracing this idea that new building blocks

play00:53

give them a potential to create new things and they're eager to build.

play00:57

They're eager to embrace new technology and they're willing to be these

play01:00

early adopters of things that allows them to free up their creativity

play01:04

in ways that they couldn't do in the past.

play01:15

I've always known that I wanted to start my own business.

play01:17

One of my uncles started a line of chain of bakeries and my parents even ran

play01:23

their own restaurant.

play01:24

And so very early on I saw the sort of energy they put into building their own business.

play01:28

I've always had that spirit in me to want to do that for myself.

play01:31

I eventually went into a career, something pretty different, where I went into

play01:35

consulting and investment banking, where I got to see what it takes to really build

play01:40

a business and grow a business at scale.

play01:41

What separates a successful business versus one that sort of stalls

play01:45

or is not able to build something long term?

play01:48

Seeing that world allowed me to be exposed to many different types of businesses.

play01:52

I eventually wanted to take what I learned

play01:54

and apply that to a much earlier stage venture.

play01:57

So I ended up joining a startup as a first finance hire.

play02:00

The company name was Optimizely.

play02:02

When I decided to join Optimizely, the decision was driven a lot by a mentor's advice,

play02:07

which is when you see a rocket ship, you

play02:09

strap yourself on and you go for the ride.

play02:12

And Optimizely at the time was going through a phase of hyper growth.

play02:15

I think the biggest lesson learned from Optimizely is that

play02:18

every business can embrace a spirit of experimentation very early on,

play02:23

and experimentation is going to look different at every stage of the business.

play02:27

When you're very small, you know, experimentation is really about trying to learn from your users.

play02:32

A lot of qualitative feedback, talking to them,

play02:34

understanding what their pain points are, showing them initial concepts or prototypes,

play02:38

and then being willing to go back and iterate on that.

play02:41

Companies that embrace experimentation understand that

play02:43

when you ship a product or a feature, that isn't the end, that is the beginning.

play02:48

That is the beginning of the learning, learning from users, understanding

play02:51

how they're actually using the product such that you can go back and improve and

play02:54

continue to improve over and over again.

play02:56

I met my two co-founders at Optimizely.

play02:59

We all joined pretty early on and worked together for five plus years.

play03:03

John is incredibly gifted at listening to all of our customer support tickets.

play03:09

My name is John Norona and I am one of the co-founders and head of product at Gamma

play03:14

in college I studied computer science.

play03:16

I wasn't sure if I wanted to be a software engineer

play03:19

because I thought it was very antisocial, just sitting in front of a screen.

play03:22

And I thought that wasn't really for me. I'm an extrovert.

play03:24

I like talking to people and working with people.

play03:26

And I actually found an internship at Microsoft as a product manager.

play03:30

I knew it involved talking to people and working with them

play03:32

to figure out what you're going to build and why you're going to build it.

play03:35

And I was really drawn to that and I ended up sticking with that.

play03:37

So I went back to Microsoft full time as a product manager.

play03:40

When you build a search engine, everything is quantifiable and has metrics.

play03:44

So I learned a lot from that.

play03:46

A couple of years into Microsoft, I realized I wanted

play03:47

to be closer to the startup scene.

play03:49

I wanted to actually get exposed to more startups.

play03:51

And so I joined a company that had just raised their series A called Optimizely.

play03:55

And my own job at Optimizely involved either giving presentations

play03:59

or receiving presentations for 6 to 8 hours every day nonstop in meetings.

play04:04

So that was kind of where the company all started.

play04:06

It was our experience of sitting through that and thinking there has to be

play04:09

a better way to communicate ideas at work.

play04:11

That's how the company was born.

play04:12

So for me, some of the strengths I tried to lean into and really develop as

play04:16

a product manager were constant curiosity.

play04:19

I've always been interested in learning more about how people are

play04:22

actually using a product and what their challenges are at large companies.

play04:26

That usually meant digging into data.

play04:27

So I would say one of the strengths I've worked most on is quantitative analysis

play04:31

so that you can actually understand your company's metrics.

play04:34

Smaller companies, it's often been much more qualitative,

play04:36

so it's doing a lot of very hands on user research and understanding what people

play04:41

are really doing with your products.

play04:45

Any time there is a technology shift like AI, there is this temptation for founders

play04:53

to take this technology and then go search for a problem.

play04:57

I think it's always easier to start with acknowledging

play05:00

what problems already exist out there.

play05:02

Find a problem or space you're personally passionate about.

play05:05

Because AI aside, if you're going to be starting a business

play05:09

to solve a problem, you're going to be invested in it for many, many years.

play05:13

You need to be willing to spend time in that space for two, three,

play05:17

four, five years to really be able to know whether or not you can

play05:20

build something special out of that.

play05:22

So before you rush into trying to apply new technology, start with a problem

play05:26

and then figure out, okay, are there ways to take advantage

play05:28

of everything that's out there, not least of which AI and apply that to

play05:32

solving that problem for your end users?

play05:34

I think when we first started telling people about what we were working on,

play05:38

the problem itself is pretty universal.

play05:40

When you talk to many people, there's very few people that say,

play05:43

I love making slides and so I think people understood the problem.

play05:47

The problem resonated.

play05:49

What we did was spent a lot of time in the beginning just observing

play05:53

people create PowerPoint presentations and we saw them doing the same things

play05:57

over and over and spending so much time doing the work to format and design

play06:02

and then oftentimes moving back into like a document and then go back into PowerPoint

play06:06

to like go back to designing. It was a very disjointed process.

play06:10

So we believe that ultimately we can come up with a new way of creating

play06:14

and a new way of creating requires different building blocks.

play06:17

If it didn't require so much effort to format and design, maybe the overall

play06:22

experience could be dramatically simpler, much faster, and hopefully

play06:26

more delightful for the end user.

play06:28

The first versions of the product definitely very rudimentary.

play06:33

You're trying to get at the essence of what you believe

play06:37

your product could be one day.

play06:38

And so we built a very basic text editor without a lot of features

play06:42

that was just broken up into sections.

play06:43

And so in each section you could type words, you could add pictures,

play06:47

and then there was a present button where you could step through each of these sections one by one.

play06:50

And when you step through them, you could animate it like a presentation.

play06:54

So most people using our product wouldn't really retain with it.

play06:57

They would try it out and give us some feedback, but it was not a replacement

play07:00

for anybody's workflow.

play07:01

When your first users are your friends and former colleagues, you almost can't listen

play07:07

to the type of feedback they tell you because they don't want

play07:09

to hurt your feelings.

play07:10

So what you really do is you try to trust the numbers.

play07:13

Are they coming back to your product without you nudging them or telling them to?

play07:18

You're trying to then just kind of look at patterns in the usage.

play07:21

Where do people drop off?

play07:22

What are people actually using of users that stick around to inform

play07:26

where you think you're making progress?

play07:28

And actually the way we got through that early period without a lot of validation

play07:31

was we relied heavily on using our own product.

play07:33

So even though our product wasn't good enough for anybody outside to use,

play07:36

we forced ourselves to use it from very, very early on

play07:39

for everything we did inside our company,

play07:41

all of our notes, all of our meetings.

play07:43

We even made up reasons to give presentations,

play07:45

but we forced ourselves to do it every day, every week.

play07:48

And that process of living inside of our MVP and seeing all the things

play07:51

that were wrong and broken led to constant improvements.

play07:54

Every single week our product got 10% better,

play07:56

10% better, 10% better, 10% better.

play07:59

And that added up over at least a year, probably even a year and a half

play08:02

before we had something that I would say was actually good.

play08:05

And that was the first time that we actually launched.

play08:07

Our very first version of this was we had a private beta.

play08:10

So all we had was a landing page, just said a little bit about what our

play08:13

product was and how to sign up button.

play08:14

And through those we actually got our first I want to say maybe 1000 or 2000 signups for our private beta.

play08:20

Our first thousand users was really a gradual sort of snowball over time.

play08:25

We started with any of our friends or former colleagues that spent a lot

play08:29

of time building presentations, and many of them would go on to share it

play08:32

with their coworkers or others that they knew that also had the same pain point

play08:37

around building presentations.

play08:38

But even that wasn't really a product launch.

play08:40

It was just a landing page.

play08:41

We didn't actually publicly launch our product until I think it was last August.

play08:45

We launched on Product Hunt and we put a lot of work into that Product Hunt launch.

play08:49

We had already tested our product in private beta

play08:51

for several months at that point, and so we knew which parts of it worked well.

play08:55

And we actually relied on a lot of video to show off those things.

play08:58

We redid our landing page and we really tried to nail our messaging

play09:02

and our onboarding for that.

play09:03

That product hunt launch also went a lot better than I expected.

play09:06

Actually.

play09:07

We ended up being the number one product on product hunt, and we saw

play09:10

a clear spike in signups where suddenly we got thousands of signups in our product

play09:14

just over the course of a day.

play09:16

Although we had that first upswing of users, it's still plateaued

play09:19

and then leveled off at a lower rate to the point where we were getting maybe

play09:22

hundreds of signups a day after that.

play09:25

It wasn't enough for enough for us to really feel really confident

play09:27

that we had actually nailed the value proposition.

play09:30

So we spent probably six months after that just iterating with

play09:33

that base of users we were getting.

play09:35

I emailed every single person who signed up and asked, How did you hear about us

play09:39

and do you have any feedback for us?

play09:40

I emailed the ones who ended up using the product and also

play09:43

the ones who took one look and didn't use the product.

play09:45

And we actually went through all that feedback and just looked at

play09:48

what were some of the most common problems that people brought up.

play09:51

Sometimes it was missing features, sometimes it was bad expectation setting.

play09:54

So we very gradually iterated on that until we could do

play09:58

a much bigger launch this past March.

play10:00

At the time of our public beta, we didn't have any of our current AI capabilities,

play10:04

so we actually ended up spending a lot of time after our initial public beta launch

play10:08

really redesigning the entire creation flow with AI at the core.

play10:12

And we realized that at some point we would release this

play10:16

to some of our early users to see how, see what the feedback was.

play10:20

And the feedback was tremendously positive.

play10:22

We could see that people that already understood the value of Gamma

play10:25

once they got AI, it made them work even faster and unlocked a different level

play10:29

of creativity than they had before, and they embraced the tool even more.

play10:33

And actually the hard problem before I was that we could work really,

play10:36

really hard on trying to create a better alternative to slides.

play10:40

But it was very hard for someone to actually see that and grasp what it was.

play10:43

There was this huge blank page problem where we could tell you five benefits

play10:46

of Gamma, but you had to invest an hour of your time to make something cool before

play10:50

you could really see those benefits.

play10:51

So most people just never got over that threshold.

play10:53

The activation energy was too high. I has completely changed that.

play10:57

I let's you see that first hour of magic in the space of one minute instead.

play11:01

And so that totally transformed our onboarding and activation.

play11:04

So then we prepared for a much larger launch around AI

play11:08

and releasing our AI capabilities.

play11:10

And that's when we just started seeing usage and engagement go through the roof.

play11:14

And this is at the point where we also started thinking about how would we

play11:18

actually price and package the product.

play11:19

The big difference with AI compared to a lot of traditional software products

play11:23

is that AI has a high marginal cost you have to pay to run these models.

play11:27

And so we realized we couldn't afford to give everybody unlimited usage of our AI for free

play11:31

very last minute before our launch, maybe a week before we quickly

play11:34

built out a system of credits just to limit how much you could use at the start.

play11:39

And so we launched with 400 credits per user when you signed up,

play11:41

they used it a ton and very quickly they would go

play11:44

from 400 credits to zero credits and they would say, How do I get more?

play11:47

I want to keep using your product,

play11:49

Why won't you take my money? Basically.

play11:51

That became a really strong sign of willingness to pay.

play11:53

And so very quickly, monetization went from a low priority to the top priority,

play11:57

not even because we wanted the money for ourselves, but because we needed a way

play12:00

to unblock these users to use us more.

play12:02

And we built a very hacky prototype version of monetization to begin with

play12:06

where we didn't even have a buy button inside our product.

play12:08

It was purely a link we would send over support.

play12:11

We use Stripe for monetization and we would manually go into Stripe

play12:14

and create a payment link and send it to somebody and add credits to them.

play12:17

And that very quickly validated that people were willing to pay.

play12:20

I think within an hour of sending our first payment link, the first person paid.

play12:24

And that allowed us maybe like a month and a half ago to launch

play12:27

self-serve pricing in the product.

play12:29

And that's what's gotten us past our first 1000 paying customers.

play12:32

The one that has most amazed us has just been the sustained

play12:35

signup growth that we're seeing.

play12:37

So we're now in the millions of users and just recently we crossed

play12:40

over 50,000 people signing up in one day.

play12:43

And actually that day was the 4th of July, which here in the US

play12:46

is like one of our biggest holidays.

play12:47

And so nobody was even at work.

play12:49

But it showed us actually the international growth where people outside the U.S.

play12:53

were discovering our product and using it in ways we couldn't even imagine.

play12:56

So we've been really happy to see how quickly we've been able to monetize many of these new signups.

play13:04

I definitely see AI as being the ultimate partner

play13:08

to somebody to unlock human creativity.

play13:11

When you have AI and a tool like Gamma, we think of it as having basically a design partner

play13:16

that has unlimited creativity but also unlimited patience

play13:20

so they can sit with you.

play13:21

They never get bored of the type of questions you ask.

play13:23

They never get bored of the struggles you might have.

play13:26

And I, as your partner then really takes your own work to levels that you wouldn't

play13:31

be able to accomplish on your own.

play13:33

And definitely within the timeline of your own projects.

play13:36

I think the core competency that we're aiming for is helping people express ideas easily.

play13:44

If you break that down into sort of our different job functions,

play13:47

if you think about our designers, it's about empowering other people's creativity.

play13:51

It's putting yourself in the mind of someone who is actually not a designer

play13:55

themselves, but who needs to express ideas and really having deep empathy for them

play13:59

and finding ways to make their job a lot easier.

play14:02

And then for engineering, it's often about creating a very

play14:06

frictionless user experience, which includes things like performance and

play14:11

reliability and just overall smoothness that contributes to that feeling

play14:14

of like easy, frictionless authoring.

play14:17

I think it's a really exciting time to be an investor or operator in AI.

play14:22

The speed at which these markets are moving is both intimidating and pretty inspiring.

play14:28

That being said, there's clearly a lot of hype in AI and we do see a number of teams

play14:33

that seem to approach building an AI with a mentality like

play14:36

How do I leverage AI to build a product? And I actually think that's backwards.

play14:41

I'm much more interested in customer obsessed teams that say, Hey,

play14:45

what's a customer problem that I've identified that my customers

play14:49

are facing or a point of friction?

play14:51

And out of all of the tools that I could use to go try to address that problem,

play14:55

is AI potentially the best one to do so?

play14:58

I personally am excited about applications where companies are leveraging AI

play15:04

to move humans from more of a creator role to a curator role.

play15:08

And Gamma of course, is one of my favorite examples of this.

play15:12

We believe that Gamma can be that tool that anybody can pick up, learn, embrace,

play15:16

and whatever ideas they want to share or communicate.

play15:19

They can use Gamma to create dramatically beautiful content

play15:23

that they're proud to share with others.

Rate This

5.0 / 5 (0 votes)

الوسوم ذات الصلة
Presentation TechInnovationCreativity ToolsBusiness StartupUser ExperienceAI DesignProduct DevelopmentEntrepreneurshipTech TrendsIdeation Platform
هل تحتاج إلى تلخيص باللغة الإنجليزية؟