Grant Lee

$0 -> $100M ARR. How Gamma Scaled Quickly without a Sales Team 100 million in ARR. A team of 50. Zero sales reps. Grant Lee, Co-founder and CEO of Gamma, shares the exact playbook behind one of the most capital-efficient growth stories in SaaS - from pitching investors out of a London kitchenette to going viral with a single tweet that got Paul Graham throwing shade. In this session, Grant breaks down four lessons: 1. Product-market fit isn't a checkbox. After winning Product of the Day on Product Hunt and watching signups plateau, Gamma went back to the drawing board. They gave themselves three months to make the first 30 seconds of the product feel magical - and word of mouth did the rest (5K signups/day, then 10K, then 50K, zero marketing spend). 2. Creator marketing only works if you've done it yourself. Grant went through "Cringe Valley" to understand what creators actually need - then used that to manually onboard every creator partner and build something that felt authentic, not transactional. 3. Community-led growth is literal. At 50M users, Gamma flew power users to SF, visited customers in Seoul, London, and São Paulo, and created a Gambassador Slack where early feedback shapes the product roadmap. Your users are not a faceless entity. 4. Dogfooding the future builds conviction. How Gamma killed their virtual office idea after six months and went all-in on presentations - and why testing your own product is the fastest path to knowing what to build next. If you're building a product-led company and wondering whether to invest in marketing or go back to the product - watch this first.

Grant Lee

Co-Founder and CEO

Gamma

This Week In Startups is made possible by: Gusto - https://www.gusto.com/twist Lemon IO -  https://lemon.io/twist Quo - http://quo.com/TWiST Today’s show:  We keep hearing about how AI is killing our ability to think, filling our media with slop, and ruining our kids’ ability to learn. It seems the internet is filled with negative sentiment about the future AI is bringing. Jason is joined by Grant Lee, CEO and co-founder of Gamma, as well as Steven Johnson, editorial director of NotebookLM to tackle these questions on today’s AI roundtable! Grant and Steven break down how they are using AI to push forward their own productivity as well as their teams. Both say that AI makes you more creative! Steven points out that it helped him write his books by having AI do the “chore work” while he got to focus on the valuable insights and higher level thinking. One valuable tip was that AI can be used to uncover customer insights in a new medium. Steven and Grant both put customer feedback into an LLM, allowed them to have high level conversations with their whole user base about what features and products they each enjoy. If that isn’t creative, then what is? Learn about all this and more in today’s roundtable! Timestamps: (00:00) Introducing Steven Johnson and Grant Lee! (10:12) Gusto: Check out the online payroll and benefits experts with software built specifically for small business and startups. Try Gusto today and get three months FREE at https://www.gusto.com/twist (11:28) How Jason and the TWiST team uses NotebookLM (12:37) Will AI replace lawyers in startups and VC? Should they? (16:08) How the Gamma team uses AI understand their consumers (19:43) Lemon.io: Get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://lemon.io/twist (22:38) How the Google team uses AI to “talk” to their whole user base. (24:45) Is AI replicating our brains and consciousness? (28:18) The ways that AI is changing how companies process information. (30:39) Quo (formerly OpenPhone) gives you a clean, modern way to handle every customer call, text, and thread all in one place. Try it free at http://quo.com/TWiST (31:43) Jason thinks groupchats are the modern coffee shop for interesting ideas! (32:48) Why Steven thinks AI makes creatives MORE ORIGINAL (40:02) HALF of US adults think AI makes you less creative (43:20) Grant defends using AI for doing research + making business decisions (45:28) Superforecasting — How to think about your thinking (53:00) Is education going back to blue books and oral exams? (56:30) Jevons Paradox and How AI will increase jobs for all! (59:50) Edison put whale hunters out of business but brought in electricians and movie industry (1:02:36) Jason coaches his employees to 10x themselves with AI tools to push value (1:05:54) Jason’s call to join the AI revolution * Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com Check out the TWIST500: https://twist500.com Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp * Follow Lon: X: https://x.com/lons * Follow Alex: X: https://x.com/alex LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm/ * Follow Jason: X: https://twitter.com/Jason LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis/ * Thank you to our partners: (10:12) Gusto: Check out the online payroll and benefits experts with software built specifically for small business and startups. Try Gusto today and get three months FREE at https://www.gusto.com/twist (19:43) Lemon.io: Get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://lemon.io/twist (30:39) Quo (formerly OpenPhone) gives you a clean, modern way to handle every customer call, text, and thread all in one place. Try it free at http://quo.com/TWiST

Grant Lee

Co-Founder and CEO

Gamma

Steven Johnson

Technology Writer and Author

Google LabsGoogleNotebookLMWonderland

Grant Lee is the co-founder of Gamma, the AI-powered presentation tool that’s one of the hottest and most interesting AI startups in the world right now. They’re valued at over $2 billion, and they hit $100 million ARR in just over two years, with a lean team of just around 30 people. Unlike many fast-growing AI startups, Gamma has been profitable for most of its history, has not raised significant funding, and they built a massive business in a category most investors dismissed. In fact, one investor told Grant his idea was “the dumbest idea he had ever heard.” We discuss: • How Gamma found product-market fit by rethinking their onboarding • Their process for building a “word-of-mouth machine” • How they leveraged more than 1,000 micro-influencers instead of big names • Why focusing on the “first 30 seconds” transformed their business • Their approach to pricing that led to profitability within months • How Grant thinks about building a durable “GPT wrapper” business — Brought to you by: Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security. Justworks—The all-in-one HR solution for managing your small business with confidence Miro—A collaborative visual platform where your best work comes to life — Where to find Grant Lee: • X: https://x.com/thisisgrantlee • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grantslee — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Grant Lee and Gamma (05:59) The founding story of Gamma (09:52) Achieving product-market fit (15:43) Self-awareness as a founder (17:17) The power of onboarding (20:41) The original insight that led to Gamma (22:42) Founder-led marketing and growth tactics (29:20) Sharing online (37:40) Getting to $100M ARR (41:19) Influencer marketing as a growth strategy (54:08) Virality is not an accident (58:30) Investing in brand before paid ads (01:02:04) Tips for getting started with performance marketing (01:04:49) Prototyping and user feedback (01:16:12) Adapting and moving quickly (01:19:21) The concept of GPT wrapper companies (01:22:16) Deep dive into workflow and model utilization (01:29:06) Pricing strategies (01:34:53) Hiring philosophy and practices (01:43:24) Betting big on high performers (01:45:03) Final thoughts and lightning round — References: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-50-people-built-a-profitable-ai-unicorn — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

Grant Lee

Co-Founder and CEO

Gamma

Grant Lee was told Gamma was "the worst idea ever heard" by an investor who hung up mid-Zoom—yet he built it to 100 million users and $100M ARR without spending a dollar on advertising. While competitors hired aggressively, Grant's team of seven refused to grow, dedicating 25% of their tiny team to design and personally onboarding every influencer themselves.  They reveal how ignoring AI for their first two years, then orchestrating multiple models in ways the frontier labs can't replicate, let them steal the presentation market from Microsoft and Google—going from 60,000 signups in eight months to 50,000 per day.   Resources: Follow Grant on X: https://x.com/thisisgrantlee Follow Sarah on X: https://x.com/sarahdingwang Follow Olivia on X: https://x.com/omooretweets   Stay Updated:  If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends! Find a16z on X: https://x.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Listen to the a16z Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX Listen to the a16z Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711 Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Stay Updated: Find a16z on YouTube: YouTube Find a16z on X Find a16z on LinkedIn Listen to the a16z Show on Spotify Listen to the a16z Show on Apple Podcasts Follow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Grant Lee

Co-Founder and CEO

Gamma

Make your product irresistible, and everything else will follow. That’s the philosophy of Grant Lee, co-founder and CEO of Gamma, an AI design platform with an 'anti-PowerPoint approach', used by over 50M people. This week on Grit, he also shares why enduring businesses aren’t one person shows, and how their deliberate hiring process shapes and strengthens company culture. Connect with Grant Lee X LinkedIn Connect with Joubin X LinkedIn Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

Grant Lee

Co-Founder and CEO

Gamma

Grant Lee is the Co-founder & CEO of Gamma, building instant PowerPoints, presentations, and websites with AI. As someone who’s made a lot of decks, its refreshing how Gamma thinks about slides starting with the words and narrative, using AI to build the design around the story. Gamma has put up impressive metrics, growing from zero to $50 million in ARR and 50 million users with only 30 employees. They’ve also had zero employee attrition, and a negative lifetime burn rate, with more cash in the bank than they’ve raised. We talk about building a horizontal product instead of for a specific vertical, why Grant likes hiring generalist’s, how a quarter of the team is designers, why they’ve never raised large funding rounds, and how they run the company with an efficient team while not subscribing to 996 working hours. Grant also shares how Gamma rebuilt their entire product to be AI-native in the months after ChatGPT launched, and how every department at Gamma uses AI internally. Thanks to Anamitra and Gaurav at Afore, Shiyan @ Hustle Fund, Evan @ South Park Commons, and Vas @ Accel for helping brainstorm topics for Grant. Special thanks to presenting sponsor of The Peel, Ramp. Ramp: Time is money. Save both with Ramp. Join 40,000+ companies, go to https://ramp.com/ThePeel Numeral: The end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance. Try it here: https://bit.ly/NumeralThePeel Timestamps: (3:46) Gamma: The anti-Powerpoint (5:56) How to be efficient with a small team (7:58) Importance of full-stack generalists (12:15) How to hire problem solvers (15:57) Changing slides from designs to narratives (20:13) Gamma’s freemium AI business model (22:36) Ignoring conventional wisdom with a horizontal product (28:47) Why Gamma started with Slides (32:21) Raising a Pre-Seed for a horizontal product (38:25) Why Gamma avoided hyped funding rounds (40:57) How fundraising impacts recruiting (43:40) Liquidation preferences and employee equity (47:08) Gamma’s zero employee attrition (49:54) Working in-person during COVID (52:15) Using waitlists to batch new user cohorts (56:08) Re-building the product to be AI-native (58:17) How to improve your onboarding (1:00:46) Benefitting from AI models getting better (1:05:10) Growing from 60k to 50 million users (1:07:30) How to stand out as an AI company (1:09:23) Creating a Gamma API (1:11:37) How Gamma uses AI internally (1:15:06) Why Gamma doesn’t do 996 working hours (1:19:54) 4-month product sprints (1:22:16) Parenting hacks: sleep, exercise, nutrition (1:24:26) Brand and community lessons from Nike and Apple Referenced Gamma Careers at Gamma Optimizely NotebookLM Fin / Intercom: Afore Capital Follow Grant Twitter LinkedIn Follow Turner Twitter LinkedIn Subscribe to my newsletter here to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week.

Grant Lee

Co-Founder and CEO

Gamma