Best Case of Viral Marketing: How the AI Startup Cluely's Founder Raised 15 Million USD in Three Months

Walking from the dormitory to Silicon Valley, the AI startup Cluely has disrupted the entrepreneurial model in just 10 weeks. Founder Roy uses "controversy" and "viral content" as weapons, successfully securing a $15 million investment from the renowned venture capital firm a16z, and generating millions in revenue. His rebellious marketing philosophy, spirit of product experimentation, and content strategy are creating a new model for Gen Z entrepreneurs.

The following is the content of the podcast between a16z and Roy, translated and organized by Chain News.

From Harvard dropout to AI startup genius: "Controversy" has become synonymous with Roy.

The life trajectory of Cluely's founder Roy can be described as dramatic. Known for his "attention-seeking and provocative" personality since childhood, he was admitted to Harvard after graduating from high school, but his enrollment was revoked due to multiple violations of school rules. This incident severely impacted his parents' college consulting business, but it also unexpectedly ignited the entrepreneurial flame within him.

Not long after returning to the Ivy League school Columbia, Roy decided to embrace his "rebellious philosophy" and promptly dropped out to start his own business:

I want to double down on all the crazy ideas and then live the most interesting life.

These chaotic yet rich experiences laid the foundation for his future viral marketing strategy, which focused on "authentic and controversial" content.

The Contrarian Players of Algorithms: How to Achieve Over 100 Million Impressions on X and LinkedIn

Roy accurately captures the rhythm of the algorithms on social media platforms, discovering that the algorithms of X (Twitter) and LinkedIn are far behind those of TikTok and Instagram. He transplanted the "provocative" content style of the latter platforms to these business platforms, boldly creating controversy around his products and successfully generating hotspots in a niche battlefield:

People are tired of corporate and inauthentic content; they want to see real people doing real things.

He calls his marketing strategy "anti-fragile marketing (anti-fragile marketing)," which means the more attacks, the higher the volume:

The ultimate reward of the algorithm is still the most controversial and authentic content. When people criticize my product due to its controversy, it actually brings more attention and "aura points (aura points)."

Such a strategy not only saves Cluely a huge amount in advertising costs but also triggers the viral spread of content more precisely.

( Note: Aura or aura points is a recent internet buzzword used to describe a person's level of "coolness", "popularity" or "charisma" in social situations )

Cluely Team Strategy: 100,000 Followers on Social Media as an Entry Requirement

At Cluely, all full-time employees must have at least 100,000 followers to prove their influence in content dissemination. Roy emphasized that:

If the head of the marketing department of any company does not even have 100,000 followers, then he should be immediately replaced, because the rules of the game have changed.

At the same time, the company has only established two core positions: "Top Engineer" and "Top Creator." To quickly produce content, Cluely has also hired over 60 part-time employees responsible for shooting a large number of short videos to attract attention through TikTok and Instagram.

Compared to other AI startups that often spend tens of thousands of dollars on advertising, they only spend a minimal amount of money to generate billions of traffic, which he calls a high-efficiency content investment.

From cheating tools to enterprise-level AI: Cluely's product philosophy is "go viral first, then redefine."

Cluely was originally a "cheating tool" called Interview Coder, designed specifically for technical interviews. Roy also confessed that he once used it to cheat in an interview with Amazon (Amazon), which led to him being banned by the company and expelled from school. However, these negative outcomes also brought his product billions of exposures, highlighting that this controversial content itself is a point of attraction.

He admitted that it was only ten weeks since he wrote the first line of code before Cluely went live, and he even completed the final test the day before the promotional video was released. However, he firmly believes that their core strategy is correct:

Launch first, then guide product development based on user data to see which ideas can generate user demand and engagement.

Roy gave an example, mentioning casually in the video applications such as "sales calls," which unexpectedly created this demand, ultimately bringing him over a million dollars in revenue.

Today, Cluely is positioned as an "invisible AI overlay (invisible AI overlay)", capable of viewing screens, listening to voices, and assisting with everything. The goal is to help millions understand its potential and use cases before the official launch.

( Online interviews can also be cheated: How Cluely AI deceives interviewers and rewrites the recruitment model? )

Content-Driven: The Next Generation Startup Formula in the Eyes of Investors

Bryan, an early investor in Cluely and a partner at a16z, believes that in an era of rapidly evolving AI models, products no longer need to be highly refined but require the momentum of "rapid action" and "swift iteration":

In the future, there will be more founders like Roy who treat their audience as co-founders, first letting the whole world see and know him before starting to create products.

Bryan emphasized that what sets Roy apart is his ability to truly convert content traffic into a monetizable software business. He does not simply rely on popularity to sell products; instead, he first builds an insurmountable wall with that popularity. This makes him not just a founder, but a representative case of "content-driven entrepreneurship" for this generation.

(How can AI products navigate through the bubble towards longevity? Introduction: a16z's five recommendations for enterprise-level AI startups)

The rebellious doctrine of Cluely is rewriting the rules of entrepreneurship.

Cluely is not just a product or a company; it is an experiment in business and culture. What Roy brings is not just traffic and revenue, but a marketing approach that challenges traditional entrepreneurship models through extreme transparency, content-first strategies, and anti-mainstream tactics.

He arrogantly said, "If we ultimately succeed, perhaps the entire startup industry will become different."

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