Paul Graham Said His Startup Was Worthless—2 Months Later He Hit $1M ARR. | Jon Noronha, Co-Founder of Gamma
Description
Jon spent 3 years building Gamma with barely any traction—just a few hundred users after burning millions. Then ChatGPT dropped. In desperation, he pivoted to AI-powered presentations in March 2023 with one year of runway left. What happened next was insane: Paul Graham publicly mocked their launch tweet calling it worthless—then it went viral.
They went from 2,000 signups a day to 60,000. Their servers crashed for three days, but when they came back online, panicked users threw $50K at them thinking they needed to pay to make it work. Within two months of launching payments, they hit $1M ARR and became cashflow positive.
This is the raw story of how a dying startup caught the AI lightning and never looked back.
Why You Should Listen:
- How to survive 3 years with no traction.
- Why 80% hype and 20% value can still build a real business
- The exact onboarding flow that turned 5% activation into viral growth
- How negative viral engagement can still drive massive revenue
- The difference between 10x better and 50% better
Keywords:
Gamma, Jon Noronha, AI presentations, product market fit, pivot to AI, viral growth, Paul Graham, ChatGPT, cashflow positive, productivity startup
00:00:00 Intro
00:02:15 Why presentations haven't changed in 40 years
00:11:55 User research reveals the real problem
00:26:26 The market crashes and runway shrinks
00:34:32 ChatGPT drops and everything changes
00:43:19 Paul Graham trashes the launch tweet
00:48:59 Going viral by accident
00:51:33 60,000 signups a day breaks everything
00:55:07 Hitting $1M ARR in 2 months
00:58:47 Endurance is everything
United States
