Noronha: Presentation software fails if it doesn't interoperate with legacy workflows
Jon Noronha · Paul Graham Said His Startup Was Worthless—2 Months Later He Hit $1M ARR. | Jon Noronha, Co-Found... · PMF Show · Sep 4, 2025 · at 25:30
Gamma co-founder Jon Noronha reflects on early enterprise user feedback when trying to replace traditional presentation software like PowerPoint.
0:00 / 0:28exact quote · 28.8s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“We don't exist in an island. So people would say, yeah, I made something kind of cool in your product, but if I can't turn it into a PDF at the end of the day to send it to the client, then it's useless to me. In fact, it's worse than useless because I wasted all my time making something that looks like here, but now I have to go recreate it somewhere else to send it. And so we had all these ambitions to be this new, crazy, different medium, but a lot of what people were saying is, no, I need you to actually interoperate with my world and with the world I actually operate in.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Jon Noronha
Noronha: Gamma Explored AI Out of Desperation to Impress Investors
“And so we started to get excited about AI and the reason we got excited about it was honestly, not even because we necessarily believed in it on its own sake, but because we thought it would impress investors and we knew we were hitting a desperation point whe…”
Noronha: Paul Graham Criticized Gamma's Launch Tweet About Slide-Making
“I actually remember Paul Graham
replied to the tweet and said, making slides is not the most valuable tool in business.
Like, anybody who thinks this is not making a good business.
Like, the way to make a good business is to make a good product.”
Noronha: Prezi Failed to Reach the Grade of a Professional Tool
“My takeaway from Prezi was I remember using it when I was in college and my takeaway was they'd never escaped the student trap. Their slides were like fun and cool looking and easy to make, but they never really meet reached the grade of professional. This isn…”
Noronha: Keynote and Google Slides Are Just PowerPoint Clones in Suites
“And the other tools I thought of that came to mind were there's keynote and Google slides, which are successful products, but to me, they're basically just PowerPoint clones for a different platform bolted into like sort of a suite.”
Noronha: Pitch Just Made Another Keynote Clone in the Cloud
“My takeaway from them was they just didn't do enough that was different. They basically made yet another keynote clone in the cloud.”
Noronha: Poaching talent post-acquisition is an incredible shortcut for early-stage hiring
“I realized the acquisition was this amazing moment where there's gonna be all these great people who are suddenly looking for a new gig. And if there was a place I could gather them up, like it would just be this incredible shortcut to hiring. You could speed …”