Paul Graham Said His Startup Was Worthless—2 Months Later He Hit $1M ARR. | Jon Noronha, Co-Founder of Gamma

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

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