Read time: ~7 minutes

Two Columbia students built an AI tool that could help people get real-time assistance during job interviews.

The idea was controversial. Their university took disciplinary action. The internet had plenty to say about it.

And then something unexpected happened.

The same idea that attracted criticism also attracted attention, users, investors, and eventually more than $20 million in venture funding.

That company was Cluely.

It’s an easy story to turn into a startup fairy tale:

Two college students got suspended, ignored the rules, went viral, and raised millions.

But that’s not the lesson I’d take from it.

The more interesting lesson is about how businesses turn attention into opportunity — and why attention, funding, revenue, and profit are four very different things.

And that’s a lesson that matters whether you’re building an AI company, starting a side hustle, or simply trying to get better at understanding money.

The Cluely Story

Before Cluely existed, Columbia students Chungin “Roy” Lee and Neel Shanmugam built an AI-powered tool called Interview Coder.

Its purpose was simple — and controversial.

It helped candidates get real-time assistance while answering technical coding interview questions.

The tool became controversial enough to trigger disciplinary action at Columbia. Lee was suspended for a year over the Interview Coder tool, with the suspension scheduled to run through May 2026. Rather than staying quiet about it, he publicly posted the university’s disciplinary letter online — turning the punishment itself into part of the story.

Instead of quietly moving on, the founders took the underlying idea and expanded it.

That became Cluely, an AI assistant designed to provide real-time help during conversations such as interviews, sales calls, and meetings.

Then came the part that made the story explode.

Cluely launched with a deliberately provocative brand and a video built around the idea of helping people “cheat” their way through everyday situations. The launch reportedly generated around 12 million views and tens of thousands of sign-ups.

In April 2025, Cluely raised about $5.3 million in seed funding.

Two months later, the company announced another $15 million in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz.

That’s roughly $20.3 million in venture funding in a matter of months.

But here’s where the story gets more interesting.

$20 million raised is not the same thing as $20 million earned.

And understanding that distinction is where the real financial lesson begins.

1. Distribution Isn’t an Afterthought. It’s Part of the Business.

One of the most interesting things about Cluely isn’t the AI itself.

It’s how quickly the founders figured out that getting people to notice a product can be just as important as building the product.

A traditional startup playbook might look something like this:

Build a product → launch it → market it → hope people care.

Cluely took a much more aggressive approach.

The product was controversial from the beginning. Instead of trying to make that controversy disappear, the company turned it into part of the story.

The result?

People talked about it.

They argued about it.

They shared it.

They made videos about it.

And suddenly, a product that could have been one more AI tool in an increasingly crowded market had something many competitors didn’t have:

attention.

That’s an important business lesson.

A product can be useful and still fail because nobody notices it.

You can have a great newsletter that nobody subscribes to.

A fantastic digital product that nobody finds.

A useful side hustle that nobody knows exists.

A brilliant blog post sitting on page 10 of Google.

Building something valuable is only half the job.

Distribution is how value gets discovered.

The lesson:

Don’t just ask:

“Is my product good?”

Also ask:

“Why would anyone notice it?”

That’s not vanity.

That’s business.

2. Controversy Can Buy Attention — But Attention Isn’t the Business

Cluely’s provocative positioning was a powerful growth tool.

But there’s an important distinction here.

Attention is an asset. It isn’t the final product.

Going viral can bring millions of eyeballs.

It doesn’t guarantee:

• paying customers
• customer retention
• recurring revenue
• strong margins
• profitability
• or a sustainable company

That’s why I wouldn’t recommend copying Cluely’s controversy.

I’d copy the thinking behind it.

The founders understood something many small businesses overlook:

People don’t share boring.

If your business is completely interchangeable with ten thousand others, getting noticed becomes difficult.

That doesn’t mean you need to manufacture outrage.

Maybe your angle is unusually useful.

Maybe your story is personal.

Maybe you have a strong opinion.

Maybe you explain something complicated in a ridiculously simple way.

Maybe you serve a very specific group of people better than anyone else.

The point isn’t to be controversial.

The point is to be memorable.

And there’s a big difference.

3. Start With a Narrow Problem, Not a Giant Vision

Interview Coder wasn’t trying to solve every problem involving artificial intelligence.

It had a very specific use case:

real-time assistance during technical interviews.

That’s a powerful way to start a business.

Instead of saying:

“We’re building the future of AI-powered communication.”

You can say:

“We help people solve this one painful problem.”

That’s much easier for customers to understand.

And it’s much easier for a founder to test.

Once Cluely had an initial product and a demonstrated demand for real-time assistance, the idea expanded into a broader category covering meetings, sales conversations, interviews, and other situations where people might want help in the moment.

That’s a pattern worth remembering:

Start narrow. Learn. Expand.

You don’t need to build the final version of your business on day one.

Your first product might be a $9 template.

Your first service might be something you do manually.

Your first newsletter might have 20 subscribers.

Your first side hustle might make $50.

That’s not failure.

That’s information.

The goal of the first version isn’t to impress everyone.

It’s to find out whether anyone cares.

4. Speed Matters — But Speed Without Feedback Is Just Motion

There’s another part of the Cluely story that’s easy to romanticize.

The founders moved quickly.

They didn’t spend years building a perfectly polished company before putting something in front of people.

That’s useful.

But there’s a subtle difference between moving fast and simply moving constantly.

Fast execution only matters if you’re learning something along the way.

Launch.

Watch what happens.

Talk to customers.

Look at the numbers.

Change the offer.

Try again.

That’s a much healthier version of “move fast.”

For a small business, this might mean:

Don’t spend three months designing the perfect website before selling anything.

Don’t create 50 products before you know which one people actually want.

Don’t spend weeks rewriting your landing page without checking whether anyone is even visiting it.

Put something real in front of real people.

Then let reality answer the question.

Speed is useful because it shortens the distance between an idea and evidence.

5. Here’s the Financial Lesson: $20M Raised ≠ $20M Earned

This is the part I especially want to slow down for.

When you read a headline saying:

“Startup raises $20 million.”

it can sound like the founders just made $20 million.

That’s not what happened.

Cluely raised approximately $20.3 million in venture capital during 2025.

That money came from investors.

In exchange, investors receive an ownership stake in the company and the potential for future returns.

It’s funding, not profit.

Here’s a simple way to think about it:

Funding = money investors put into a company.

Revenue = money customers pay the company.

Profit = what remains after the business pays its expenses.

Personal wealth = what the founders actually own after accounting for things like equity, liabilities, taxes, and other assets.

These numbers can be dramatically different.

And the distinction matters far beyond Silicon Valley.

A company can raise millions and still lose money.

A creator can have millions of followers and make surprisingly little.

A business can generate $1 million in sales and have very little profit.

A person can earn $200,000 a year and still have almost no savings.

Big numbers don’t tell you much until you know what the number actually represents.

That’s one of the most useful habits you can develop when learning about money.

6. The Part of the Story That’s Easy to Miss

There’s another reason Cluely is an interesting case study.

In 2025, the company publicly discussed an annual recurring revenue figure of roughly $7 million.

But in 2026, CEO Roy Lee acknowledged that the previously reported number was inaccurate and publicly corrected it, saying the actual figure was around $5.2 million.

That detail is uncomfortable.

But it’s also important.

Because financial thinking isn’t just about celebrating impressive numbers.

It’s about asking:

What exactly does this number mean?

When someone says:

• “$10 million business”
• “$1 million in sales”
• “$20 million raised”
• “$5 million ARR”
• “$100K month”

your next question should be:

“Is that revenue, funding, valuation, profit, or something else?”

Numbers need context.

And when the numbers change, your understanding of the story should change with them.

That’s not cynicism.

That’s financial literacy.

7. What You Should — and Shouldn’t — Copy From Cluely

You don’t need to drop out of college.

You don’t need to build an AI startup.

You definitely don’t need to create controversy just to get attention.

But there are a few things worth borrowing.

Copy these:

Start with a specific problem.

It’s easier to sell a clear solution than a vague vision.

Think about distribution early.

A great product that nobody discovers isn’t a great business yet.

Make your idea easy to talk about.

People are more likely to share something they can explain in one sentence.

Move quickly enough to learn.

Your first version doesn’t need to be perfect. It needs to produce evidence.

Watch the numbers.

Views, followers, sign-ups, revenue, profit, and retention are not interchangeable.

Stay curious about what the numbers actually mean.

A headline number without context can tell you a very misleading story.

The Bigger Lesson

Cluely’s story isn’t really about two college students who found a shortcut to success.

It’s a much messier story than that.

It’s about product.

It’s about distribution.

It’s about attention.

It’s about ambition.

It’s about risk.

And, eventually, it’s about the difference between looking successful and building something economically sustainable.

That’s the part I find most useful.

Because in the real world, money doesn’t move simply because something goes viral.

Attention has to become customers.

Customers have to become revenue.

Revenue has to survive expenses.

And a business eventually has to create enough lasting value to justify everything that came before it.

That’s the journey between being noticed and actually building wealth.

And if you’re building something of your own, that’s the part worth remembering.

You don’t have to copy Cluely’s story.

Just learn to think like a business owner when you read it.

Ask yourself:

What problem is being solved?

How is attention being created?

How does attention become revenue?

Where does the money actually come from?

And after all the headlines disappear, is there a real business underneath them?

Those questions will teach you far more about money than any viral success story ever could.

This article discusses publicly reported developments involving Cluely and its founders for educational purposes. Financial figures and other claims are based on reporting from Cluely, its founders, and media outlets including TechCrunch and Bloomberg, and are not independently verified by SmileGrows. This article does not endorse the company’s products, practices, or business decisions.