How Gamma Is Changing the Way We Create Presentations

We are here with Grant Lee, CEO and co-founder of Gamma. Thank you so much for being here, Grant. Thanks for having me. Yeah, tell us a little bit about the company, why you decided to build it, and what we're seeing there today. Yeah, so we started the company about six years ago. Our mission has been around empowering more people to be visual storytellers because Many of us are visual learners. Very few of us are visual designers. So how do we get what's in our head into someone else's? A lot of that needs to be translated into something that can be packaged and communicated. So we've been working on that since the beginning. Yeah. And thinking about that, because again, that's a frustration that a lot of people have is, okay, I have these ideas. I have these thoughts. I have this work I have done. How do I actually show that to people? So a lot of people have that frustration, but you actually went a step further and said, okay, let me actually do something to fix that here. So tell me a little bit about how you went from, I'm frustrated by. So, yeah, for me, you know, I've been early in my career kind of living in slide decks. So we realized that, you know, one opportunity is just to try to solve your own problems. I was sort of advising many startups. I was using Google Slides as the medium for communication and recognized, okay. We were having so much, there was so much frustration in just trying to convey our ideas in this format. Why not try to actually solve our own problems? So in the beginning, it was really kind of tinkering, nights and weekends, coming up with a prototype. The prototype eventually became our pitch deck, and we used that to raise our first round of funding. That's pretty cool that you're able to say, this is our product. What you're actually looking at right now is what we're creating. When you have so many other AI companies out there, so many other companies that are trying to compete in this space, even if they're a little bit different, how do you kind of differentiate yourself and say, all right, this is the one that you should be using, especially when you're first starting out and trying to get customers? Yeah, I mean, for us, it starts with, you know, what do we view as sort of what we can be exceptionally great at? And I think that just starts with also just the values of the mission. We talked about trying to really protect this craft of storytelling. And a tool like ours can't just be quick output. You're getting AI slides. It needs to really understand what is the message you're trying to deliver. Can Gamma really synthesize that information better than any other tool out there? And can it then actually package up that information in a way that the audience can absorb that information way faster? And so I think when we showcase Gamma side-by-side alongside tools, I think people get a sense that what we deliver is really embedded in kind of the DNA of how we approach the process of building Gamma, and the output speaks for itself. And when you have these customers kind of get excited about this and start adopting and wanting to actually use the technology, how does that make you feel with all of the time and energy that you've put into it? What is that kind of feeling like when you're like, okay, this is actually taking off now? I mean it's a very rewarding feeling. I think every founder is trying to build something that One, can build trust within their customer base and user base, and then two, drive hopefully massive outcomes for their customers. So we obviously take a lot of pride, and again, the sense of really this accomplishment happens when your users or customers reach out to you saying, hey, I was able to land a six-figure deal because I was able to actually convey my message in a way that wasn't possible before. So we stay really close to our community of users, and for us it's a really rewarding experience. And when you think about putting all of this work together that you have been doing this whole time, what have been the biggest challenges that you've had to face? And as you move forward, now that you do have customers, but obviously trying to grow more, what are those challenges that you're really trying to work through right now? I mean, I think every founder knows today that the market is just evolving so fast. And so the sort of opportunity for us is just to continue to live the sort of maximally ambitious version of your vision, right? Like you need to be challenging and pushing and thinking about how can you deliver even more value to your customers and not take for granted that if you already have an existing user base, you can leverage them and their insights to make sure that you're pushing your product even further and further. The speed at which things are happening today, I think, is like... Nothing, any sort of founder or startup founder has ever seen. And so it's really making sure that you are in the right sort of mental state to build and sort of iterate relentlessly over and over again. Yeah, I feel like the speed is just, it's so difficult to keep up with because every time you come up with something, there's something else there, right? So where do you see this going as you look towards the end of this year and even five years down the line, what do you think is going to be there for Gamma? I mean, it's really hard these days to even know what, you know, you used to have this sort of one or two or three year roadmap. I don't think any of that is possible anymore. So you look at, you know, what does the month or quarter ahead look like? And you, again, set the sort of maximally ambitious version of that and just go after it. I think in that process, you learn, the market reacts, things change, and then you kind of go back and say, of the core beliefs we have as a business, what has changed? What do we need to revisit and keep at it and, you know, go after the, again, maximally Well, that's really the best you can do, right? Be trying for the best and see where you end up. Sounds like it's going great so far. Grant Lee, CEO and co-founder of Gamma. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.