Cluely’s Roy Lee hints that viral hype isn’t enough

While Roy Lee, founder of Cluely, believes startups should be like that Think more seriously Regarding social media penetration, he also acknowledges that brand awareness alone will not lead to sustainable growth.

“I can’t say if it was a mistake, but maybe we launched too early,” Lee said. On stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 Last week. “The whole idea was to launch something that barely worked, and if we could get enough initial users, they would discover use cases for us.”

It came to prominence on the tech scene in April by marketing a taste of outrage for a product it claimed would help users “cheat at everything.” Lee first made headlines when he was four years old Suspended from Columbia University To build a tool used to cheat in job interviews. He directed this notoriety at Cluely, a startup that claims to help users “cheat at everything” by providing undetectable information during online conversations.

In late June, Cluley It introduced its enterprise productwhich claims to serve multiple use cases, including assistance with sales calls, customer support, and remote tutoring.

But earlier this week, the startup changed its scope and narrowed its scope when it introduced a new website calling its product the AI ​​Assistant for Meetings. The company’s plan now is to “become the best AI note-taking company, starting with the consumer,” Lee said on stage. As an AI note taker, Cluely is clearly entering a crowded market, but Roy touted functions like “send follow-up emails.”

But he sidestepped questions about how good sales and retention were, except to say: “I will say we’re doing better than I expected, but it’s not the fastest growing company ever.”

The startup’s ability to attract attention helped it secure a spot $15 million Series A From Andreessen Horowitz in June. That month, a16z partner Brian Kim said on the company’s podcast that he backed Cluely because Lee had figured out how to… Shifting attention In paying customers.

When the company rolled out its product this summer, Lee bragged that the startup’s ARR skyrocketed from $3 million to 7 million dollars in just one week. “Everyone who has a meeting or interview experiences this,” Lee told TechCrunch at the time.

But four months later, Lee is no longer keen to brag about his company’s financial metrics. “What I learned is that you should never share revenue numbers.”

Lee claimed there was no upside to disclosing his company’s performance: “If you’re doing well, no one’s going to talk about how good you’re doing, but if you’re doing bad, everyone’s only going to talk about how bad you’re doing.”

However, dozens of founders of fast-growing AI startups have no qualms about publicly disclosing their ARR numbers, making sharing explosive growth standard practice amid the AI ​​boom.

Cluely’s experience so far suggests that when it comes to software, social media interest only goes so far if the company doesn’t have a strong product to retain customers once it piques their interest.