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

While Roy Lee, founder of Cluely, says startups should think more seriously about social media outreach, he also acknowledges that brand awareness alone won’t lead to sustainable growth.

“I can’t say if this was a mistake, but maybe we launched too early,” Lee said on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 last week. “The whole idea [was] Let’s launch something that barely works, and if we can get enough initial users, they’ll 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 fired from Columbia University for designing 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, Cluely introduced its enterprise product, which it claimed serves 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 $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 turn interest into paying customers.

When the company introduced its product this summer, Lee bragged that the startup’s ARR had gone from $3 million to $7 million 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.