Roy Lee from Cluely talks about ragebait strategy for startup marketing

Cluely’s Roy Lee has a message for startup founders: You should think more seriously about how to go viral.

“In general, if you’re not deep tech, you need to be deeply focused on distribution,” Lee told the Disrupt 2025 audience.

But he also made it clear that not everyone is cut out for this type of viral marketing.

“If you’re good at engineering, you’re probably not funny, and you probably won’t be a content creator because it’s not in your blood. Realistically, most of these people have no chance of going viral.”

Cluely’s AI assistant became popular last April due to a widespread claim that its undetectable windows could “help you cheat at anything” — a claim that was quickly debunked when a series of monitoring services showed they could actually detect the AI ​​assistant’s use. But within months, the company had raised $15 million from Andreessen Horowitz, becoming one of the most visible products in the crowded AI assistant field.

As Lee puts it, it’s part of his knack for going viral, which often means making a lot of people mad at him. “I think I’m particularly good at framing myself in a controversial way,” he said on stage. “I do a lot of different things. And everything I do is different, I frame it through a vocal filter. Naturally, my voice is very interesting to a lot of people.”

For Lee, this is part of a broader theory of social media, where attention is the only currency.

“Reputation is a thing of the past,” he told me. “You can try to be The New York Times and maintain your tough reputation, but realistically, you have Sam Altman on the timeline talking about hot guys, and you have Elon Musk going crazy.”

“You just have to realize that the world is going to a different place, where you have to be extreme, you have to be authentic, you have to be personal,” he continued.

It is difficult to say how successful this strategy will be. When asked about Cluely’s revenue or user numbers, Lee demurred.

“What I’ve learned is that you should never share revenue numbers because if you’re doing well, no one’s going to talk about how well you’re doing. If you’re doing poorly, people will only talk about how bad you’re doing. I will say we’re doing better than I expected, but it’s not the fastest-growing company ever,” he told me.