Hereof, Roy Lee, the CEO of Cluely has been in the limelight recently. His company recently released a cutting-edge AI meeting assistant specifically aimed at improving meetings. The end goal of this product is to make the best AI note taker, starting with the consumer market. Cluely first shot to fame last April. They got people talking with a somewhat deceptive marketing approach, including the egregious claim that their tool would allow users to “cheat on anything.” Lee makes the case that viral marketing can create that first wave of interest. He cautions that while design is great, it can’t make up for poor product performance.
Cluely first gained national attention in 2019, when they helped publicize Lee’s suspension from Columbia University. He’s even gone so far as to create a tool that helps students cheat on coding job interviews. Since then, his focus has turned almost exclusively to developing a sustainable business model. The company’s annual recurring revenue (ARR) exploded from $3 million to $9 million. This extraordinary growth came within just one week of launching its enterprise product in late June. This SaaS product supports multiple use cases ranging from sales calls, customer support, and remote teaching and tutoring.
Even with these boast worthy numbers, Lee has been publicly critical in describing the impact of social media in fostering sustained success. He argues that in this new landscape, startups need to be deliberate and thoughtful in how they approach community building on the internet.
“What I’ve learned is you should never share revenue numbers.” – Roy Lee
Lee went on to explain that awareness, while helpful to increase visibility, does not create a sustainable path for future growth. His experiences are a reminder that social media attention can only carry you so far. You can’t launch and hope to succeed—you need an exceptional product that meets consumers’ needs.
Cluely’s recent pivot to rebrand its offering as an AI-powered assistant for meetings is a great example of this move in emphasis. Lee noticed that everyone he has a meeting or interview with is already in the process of testing Cluely’s product. This underscores its importance in today’s virtual landscape.
In June, Cluely secured a $15 million Series A investment from Andreessen Horowitz, which indicates strong market confidence in the company’s potential. Despite optimism across the board, Lee is pretty worried about the speed of growth.
“I’ll say we’re doing better than I expected, but it’s not the fastest growing company of all time.” – Roy Lee
He even recognized that if the launch had been too early it would have created some difficult situations. This means that there is never a bad time to improve the strategy.
“I can’t say if it’s a mistake, but maybe we launched too early.” – Roy Lee
Roy Lee’s commentary shows a remarkable grasp of how the tech world really works. He stresses the importance of product quality matching marketing tactics. He explained that brand awareness alone is not enough to keep the growth going if the product itself doesn’t provide value for the user.
Cluely’s strategy going forward is all about creating a sticky user base. They value curation over just relying on viral hits. The organization is changing fast. It will continue to improve its product and service to increase customer satisfaction and reduce churn in this fast-growing, competitive market.
