Insight
Founders should not start companies without aiming for $100M ARR year one
“If you don't believe that you yourself can get to a hundred mil ARR in the next year, then you should just don't fucking build a company cause you don't have the balls to do it.”
Disclosure
Investors using assistants to schedule founder meetings will not get allocation
“Like, there's nothing that turns, like, I can, like, if you've done this, you're probably not getting any allocation, because you've, like, ticked me off, because you've just told me I do not find you important enough. I need my assistant from the fucking Phil…”
Opinion
35-year-old marketers lack the viral sense to create massive hooks
“You need to be tapped in with young culture to understand what's funny, and you can have like a thirty-five-year-old marketer who's like Scrolls as much as they want. For some reason, they just won't have the viral sense to come up with hooks that are capable …”
Opinion
Cluely is the best early-stage startup at distribution worldwide
“But if the poor bet is that distribution is the most important thing, then obviously like we are the best distributing in the world right now at least in, in the early stage.”
Assertion Partly supported
Lee was expelled from Columbia and blacklisted by Amazon over InterviewCoder
“And after a certain point, I mean, I built this cheating tool. I get kicked out of school. I get blacklists from Amazon.”
Disclosure
Cluely remains invisible to screen share and undetectable to others
“We are the tool that lets you use AI without anybody else knowing. We're still invisible to screen share. We still have all our undetectability features”
Insight
Founders waste valuable time obsessing over burn rate and cost-cutting
“If you're a founder and you spend 10 hours thinking about burn and like cutting costs, that's 10 hours you didn't spend about making product and like making product decisions and making your product better and like growing your company.”
Disclosure
Cluely spends $50,000 monthly on DoorDash to accelerate product development
“Like right now, like we will literally spend like 50,000 dollars a month on door dashing random food. Just so we like spend more time, like spend less time cooking because everyone is more efficient and we can like grow the product faster that way.”
Opinion
Cluely secured enterprise contracts entirely through Lee's Twitter presence
“The only reason I have the contracts that I do right now is cuz the decision makers at these enterprise companies have seen my Twitter and think I'm funny and are rooting for me.”
Insight
Serious founders should eliminate work-life balance and live at work
“You need to work where you live if you're serious about building the company. Like work-life balance should not be a thing that you think about. Your work should be your life and vice versa. And if that's the case, then the best way to realize this is by liter…”
Disclosure
Cluely strictly hires world-class engineers or influencers with 100k+ followers
“We only hire one of two types of people. You're either an engineer or like a world-class engineer or you're an influencer and also like a world-class influencer with like high alcohol. There's nobody who's not a great engineer who has less than a 100,000 follo…”
Disclosure
Cluely allocates roughly 80% of its venture capital toward marketing
“The budget is essentially all of our investor money. Probably like, 80% of it.”
Opinion
Artificial superintelligence will cause almost no harm and self-restore
“I genuinely think super intelligence will do almost no harm. Whatever harm it will do, it will like self restore.”
Insight
Distribution matters more than technology for sustainable businesses
“Distribution is going at the end of the more important than anything. Technology could work backwards. You don't have distribution. You don't have a sustainable business.”
Insight
Translucent overlays will replace chatbots as AI's future UX
“The chat bot is obviously the wrong interface. What is the correct interface? I think Apple is exploring, like every, every single smart glass company, Apple, like they're exploring the idea of AI integrated in your life. And what this looks like for them is l…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cluely makes more revenue from enterprise customers than consumers
“Right now we make more money off enterprise than consumer, which is pretty crazy. But I think it's because we're still warming up the marketing for consumer and they're larger customers than consumers are. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like the contracts, like are l…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
InterviewCoder hit $3M ARR before hiring any employees
“Like, InterviewCoder, before we hired anyone, hit, like, three mil ARR, and then and then we started hiring people.”
Opinion
X users are two years behind TikTok on humor and content tolerance
“I think the first step of the pyramid is Twitter or people on Twitter are about two years behind when it comes to humor compared to people on Instagram, TikTok.”
Insight
Consistent virality makes a founder or company untouchable
“Virality is really important, but it means nothing if you can't do it consistently. But if you can do it consistently, then it's the most powerful thing in the world, and it will make you untouchable.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cluely is profitable despite aggressive marketing and operational spending
“Like we're literally profitable and we spent, like we spent as much money as we can. There's almost zero expense that goes unapproved by us.”
Insight
Tech Twitter posts with 40,000 impressions reach every tech decision-maker
“What I've learned is, if you have a post, you're, if you're in tech Twitter, and you have a post that does over, say, 40,000 impressions, you've hit pretty much every relevant decision maker in tech.”
Disclosure
Cluely's 50 interns are mostly user-generated content creators, not in-person staff
“50 interns never meant 50 interns. Well, not, not, not 50 actual in-person interns the same way that you think about them today, but it means, like, five interns and, like, say, 45 UGC creators.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cluely spent the founders' $140,000 life savings on its launch video
“Cluley launch video was a 140,000. Yeah. It was before the raise, too, so at the time it was, like, our entire life savings.”
Opinion
Elon Musk is the role model for leveraging controversy for startup growth
“I think if there ever was a role model for my, sort of, controversial polarizingness hitting escape velocity and just being able to, like, go to the, I do whatever the fuck I want zone, it's Elon.”
