From $0 to $50M ARR in <2 Years: Gammas $5M Playbook, Revealed for the First Time.
Grant Lee founder of Gamma just shared this, hope this helps!! we grew from zero to $50M ARR in <2 years, profitably i've never publicly shared our tactics before it's cost us over $5M to learn what I'm about to share 800-word long post on every growth hack that printed money for us I'll cover: 1. Influencer Marketing 2. Performance Marketing vs Brand 3. User Testing 4. Dogfooding 0-10M was nearly 100% word of mouth and organic content 10-50M was still >50% word of mouth but influencer, affiliate, and referral made up the other half But the foundation we set from 0-$10M is what allowed us to blaze past $50M 1. Influencer Marketing 101: 90% of your reach comes from <10% of content that goes viral. Your job: go broad with influencers and spend enough to find that 10% of content and formats that work. Virality is no accident - test and discover hooks, visuals, formats for each platform, understand why they work, and replicate 100x across your influencer roster. Most startups get three things wrong: 1 - Too small budget 2 - Overly selective on creators and messaging 3 - Give up too early Start with $10-20k/month, commit to 6 months minimum. This lets you experiment with many micro influencers and lets you test many concepts. - List creator personas with audiences that care about your product. Be exhaustive. Influencer outreach is time-consuming. Work with a freelancer or agency if you don't have a team. DM me for recommendations. - Offer base + viral bonus. For TikTok, have them start new accounts. New accounts can get as many views as established ones. But on new accounts creators are unburdened by their brand and can try any format. - Test across all platforms (TikTok, IG, X, LinkedIn work for most B2B/prosumer apps). - Track specific creators and hooks that outperform, not just channels. - Add 'How did you hear about us' to onboarding. Calculate which channels drive leads vs just views. - Compile every asset, video or hook that works into a guide. Once you have 20-30 winning formats, hire your top creators as consultants to train all other influencers on what angles go viral for you and why.