From Rejection to 100M Users: Gamma's Viral Growth
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Resources & Recommendations
Books
- "Lean Startup" by Eric Ries - Mentioned as a foundational concept for building a product with strong word of mouth.
Research & Studies
- Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter - Used by Gamma to conduct initial pricing studies.
People Mentioned
- David Kelly (Founder of IDEO) - Mentioned as a mentor who emphasized user empathy, leading to the invention of the one-button mouse.
- Ben (no last name mentioned) - Quoted for his principle: "if you haven't done the job yourself how do you know what you're hiring for."
- Brian Chesky (CEO of Airbnb) - Referenced for his philosophy on getting the first 10 or 100 hires right to set the blueprint for company DNA.
Organizations & Institutions
- IDEO - Mentioned in relation to David Kelly's work and the invention of the Apple mouse.
- Xerox - Mentioned as having a three-button mouse before IDEO's one-button mouse.
- Microsoft - Mentioned as a large incumbent in the presentation software market.
- Google - Mentioned as a large incumbent in the presentation software market.
Tools & Software
- PowerPoint - Mentioned as the dominant presentation software with a long history and 16x9 format.
- Google Slides - Used by Grantley as a presentation tool before founding Gamma, highlighting the formatting pain points.
- ChatGPT - Used as a reference point for Gamma's initial pricing strategy.
- Zapier - Mentioned as a tool that Gamma can connect with for user workflows.
- Make - Mentioned as a tool that Gamma can connect with for user workflows.
- Granola - Mentioned as a tool that can feed notes into Gamma for presentation creation.
- Endgame - Mentioned as a sales intelligence tool that can be integrated with Gamma.
- Glean - Mentioned as a company that sits on top of company knowledge and first-party data, where Gamma can serve as the visual storytelling layer.
- Cursor - Mentioned as a tool that has become a standard, similar to how Gamma aims to be.
- Intercom - Mentioned as the platform where users were asking about purchasing credits, highlighting the need for monetization.
Websites & Online Resources
- Product Hunt - Gamma's launch platform where they won product of the day, week, and month, but this did not lead to strong organic virality initially.
- Canny board - A public platform where users can submit and upvote feature ideas for Gamma.
- LinkedIn - Mentioned as a platform where Grantley started posting more regularly to understand content creation.
- Twitter - Mentioned as a platform where Grantley started posting more regularly to understand content creation.
- a16z.com - Mentioned as the website for a16z disclosures.
- a16z.substack.com - Mentioned as the subscription for the a16z podcast's substack.
Other Resources
- Apple Mouse - Invented by IDEO, with David Kelly's approach leading to the one-button mouse for mass consumption.
- Agentic 3.0 - A recent launch by Gamma, described as amazing with editing capabilities.
- Gamma Ambassador Program - A Slack group for power users to provide real-time feedback.
- Gamma Rama - An internal company event where employees create presentations to share knowledge and identify product pain points.
- Live Culture Deck - An internal document at Gamma outlining company culture principles.
- Founder-led sales - An important concept for B2B companies, emphasizing the founder's role in telling the product's story.
- Founder-led marketing - Emphasized as crucial for founders to tell their story compellingly and understand why their product matters.
- Longevity movement - A current topic of discussion that Grantley plans to demystify in an upcoming Gammarama presentation.
- Voice agents - A space that one of the podcast hosts spent significant time researching, forming a thesis around it using Gamma.