Whereas Roy Lee, the founding father of Cluely, argues that startups must be considering tougher about social media virality, he additionally admits that model consciousness alone gained’t result in sustained development.
“I can’t say if it’s a mistake, however possibly we launched too early,” Lee mentioned onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 final week. “The entire concept [was] let’s launch one thing that hardly works, and if we will get sufficient preliminary customers, they’ll discover out the use circumstances for us.”
Cluely burst onto the tech scene in April with rage-bait advertising for a product it claimed would assist customers “cheat on every thing.” Lee first made headlines when he was suspended from Columbia College for constructing a instrument used for dishonest on coding job interviews. He channeled that notoriety into Cluely, a startup that claimed to assist customers “cheat on every thing” by delivering undetectable data throughout on-line conversations.
In late June, Cluely launched its enterprise product, which claimed to serve a number of use circumstances, together with serving to with gross sales calls, buyer help, and distant tutoring.
However earlier this week, the startup shifted and narrowed its scope when it launched a brand new web site that calls its product an AI assistant for conferences. The corporate’s plan now could be to “change into one of the best AI observe taker, beginning with the buyer,” Lee mentioned onstage. As an AI notetaker, Cluely is clearly getting into a crowded market however Roy touted performance resembling “sending follow-up emails.”
However he deflected questions on how properly gross sales and retention have been going, besides to say: “I’ll say we’re doing higher than I anticipated, but it surely’s not the quickest rising firm of all time,” Lee mentioned.
The startup’s means to seize consideration helped it safe a $15 million Collection A from Andreessen Horowitz in June. That month, a16z accomplice Bryan Kim mentioned on the agency’s podcast that he backed Cluely as a result of Lee had found out how one can convert the eye into paying prospects.
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When the corporate launched its product this summer time, Lee boasted that the startup’s ARR skyrocketed from $3 million to $7 million inside only one week. “Each single one that has a gathering or an interview is testing this out,” Lee advised TechCrunch then.
However 4 months later, Lee is not desperate to flaunt his firm’s monetary metrics. “What I’ve discovered is it’s best to by no means share income numbers.”
Lee claimed that there’s no upside to revealing his firm’s efficiency: “For those who’re doing properly, no one goes to speak about how properly you’re doing, however when you’re doing poorly, then everyone will solely discuss how poorly you’re doing.”
Nevertheless, dozens of founders at fast-growing AI startups don’t have any qualms about publicly revealing their ARR numbers, making the sharing of explosive development a normal follow amid the AI growth.
Cluely’s expertise to date means that on the subject of software program, social media consideration solely goes thus far if the corporate doesn’t have a powerful product to maintain prospects as soon as it intrigues them.
