Cluely’s UGC Marketing Growth Strategy: How ‘Cheat on Everything’ Became the Ultimate Ranking Playbook

Cluely is more than a startup—it’s a full-blown cultural phenomenon engineered by Roy Lee and his creator-first team.

Built on outrage loops, ultra-targeted user-generated content (UGC), and unapologetically high-velocity marketing, Cluely has hijacked feeds, rewired algorithms, and attracted $15 million in funding from a16z.

But the product is only half the story. The real engine behind Cluely is its viral growth strategy that mixes ragebait, polished visuals, creator psychology, and generational ambition.

Here’s a deep dive into how Cluely pulled off one of the most aggressive marketing takeovers in recent startup history.

Roy Lee’s Origin Story Sets the Tone

Roy Lee started with scandal. He was rejected from Harvard for leaving campus without permission on a field trip. Then he got expelled from Columbia for cheating during an Amazon interview using his own AI product, Interview Coder.

That wasn’t the end of his credibility—it was the beginning of his legend. He rebranded himself as a hacker-entrepreneur and used that narrative to seed Cluely.

His parents ran a college admissions consulting company, which made his Harvard rejection hit harder—and funnier. When he finally dropped out of Columbia, his mom reportedly joked, "You should’ve dropped out earlier."

At just 21 years old, Roy Lee scaled an AI SaaS business to $500K MRR in under 2 months—before launching Cluely.

"Cheat on Everything" Is the Rallying Cry

Cluely’s brand launched around a single provocative phrase: “cheat on everything.”

It’s not just a slogan—it’s a positioning weapon. The phrase hits people where it hurts: their deeply held belief that rule-following equals virtue.

But Cluely turns that on its head. The product overlays live meetings, sales calls, support sessions, and even college lectures to automate input, suggest questions, take notes, and fake engagement.

It’s an all-in-one productivity copilot with a rebellious edge, described in Roy Lee's launch thread.

The reaction was instant and massive. Influencers, CEOs, and keyboard warriors all lit up their feeds.

Garry Tan, President and CEO of Y Combinator, grew so tired of Cluely flooding his timeline that he muted the word entirely. He called it time to put on the anti-mimetic armor.

The Ragebait Strategy Works Every Time

Cluely intentionally rides the edge of acceptability. Its tagline alone created viral outrage.

But they didn’t stop there. Fake arrest rumors circulated, including a viral email claiming Roy Lee had been booked at SF County Prison.

Even the backlash became a marketing lever.

A more serious escalation occurred when a hacker accessed the entire Supabase registry behind Interview Coder, exposing emails, names, and password hashes. But instead of hiding from the breach, the Cluely narrative leaned into the idea that giving these tools to young founders is inherently dangerous—and powerful.

Parties That Double as Distribution Hacks

At a recent Cluely after-party, police showed up due to noise complaints. But that wasn't the story.

The party itself became a marketing funnel. Attendees followed each other, and their TikTok and Reels algorithms got flooded with Cluely content.

One user even complained that his algorithm was cooked.

His words: "Can you get all ur UGC henchmen off my reels, I’ve seen like 50 Cluely ads in the last day all from different accounts."

This feedback loop is a modern version of email chain marketing, but baked into For You Pages.

UGC Factory Mode Activated

Cluely doesn’t just run paid ads. It created a self-sustaining content farm.

Interns and creators are given scripts that follow the same template: “Hi, my name is [Name], and I go to [School]...”

It’s instantly recognizable and easy to replicate. It floods TikTok, Instagram, and Reels feeds with relatable, human-first videos that don’t look like marketing.

The entire strategy was built to hijack Gen Z’s attention, and Jusung Park noted it works so well that people see these videos 5+ times a day.

Ben Aratme mentioned that less than 10 accounts trialing creators generated 4 million views in four days of clipping. The pace is relentless, and the reach is engineered.

Only Hire Creators—Not Marketers

Cluely’s marketing team isn’t a traditional growth department. It’s a collective of creators, each with massive audiences.

Lulu Meservey said that any marketer without their own audience is just burning yours—and Cluely took that to heart.

Roy Lee built the team by hiring only people who already had reach. No need to teach distribution when it’s built into your workforce.

Roy Lee knows platform-specific hacks and executes them well.

Marketing Team Launch Video Goes Nuclear

To prove the point, Roy Lee dropped a 30-second team intro video with the tagline: “distribution is a solved problem for us.”

It cost just $1,200 to make, but it gained around 3 million impressions and 10K+ likes.

They openly advertise salaries ranging from $400K–$1M + equity to attract elite engineering talent. The production quality, pacing, and delivery mimic modern cinematic trends and TikTok-native formats. It’s not just a recruiting ad—it’s a power move.

Riz Marketing: When Charm Becomes a Weapon

Some critics dubbed Cluely’s marketing style “Riz Marketing”—meant to describe its seductive charisma but laced with cultural disdain. That label stuck because it was true: Cluely’s campaigns are slick, cinematic, and inherently magnetic. They feel like trailers for a lifestyle, not software. And that’s exactly the point.

Roy leaned into this perception instead of pushing back. He hired cinematographers not just growth hackers. He focused on storytelling, not just CTAs. The strategy was to create emotional familiarity and social desirability so potent, people wouldn’t even realize they were watching marketing. They were watching aspiration.

Meme Supply Chains and Cultural Lag

Roy explained in interviews that most people on LinkedIn and X are “two years behind” in viral instincts. Gen Z-native marketing hits on TikTok and Instagram first, long before X ever catches up. He knows that distribution is shaped by cultural decay: memes start upstream and filter down.

He specifically mapped the "supply chain of memes" as:

4chan → Reddit → Twitter → TikTok → Instagram → LinkedIn → CNBC

Cluely intentionally seeds content upstream to hijack downstream virality. By the time institutional audiences catch on, the brand has already saturated their feeds.

Build the Meme First, Then the Product

Roy didn’t wait for product-market fit. He built Cluely backwards: narrative first, functionality later. He tested what resonated through videos and launched features after distribution was proven.

He described it best:

“Shot-in-the-dark distribution is cheaper than shot-in-the-dark product.”

It’s a complete inversion of typical startup dogma. Where others iterate through product sprints, Cluely iterates through memes.

Usage Is the Only Interview

Instead of relying on classic user interviews or PMF surveys, Roy watches what content spreads. If a feature goes viral in content, they build it. If it doesn’t, it gets scrapped.

This eliminates the overhead of validation and turns virality into an information-gathering system. As Roy said:

“You don’t need feedback when you have usage data at scale.”

Translucent UX: The Actual Technical Insight

Cluely’s innovation isn’t flashy infra—it’s the interface layer. The product overlays your current apps in a semi-transparent, ghostlike UI. It looks like a faint shimmer on your screen but responds to everything you do. That visual effect is what makes it feel futuristic.

Roy put it plainly:

“AI is already generally intelligent—we just trapped it inside a chatbot.”

Cluely feels magical not because it’s smarter than ChatGPT, but because it’s embedded on top of your workflow instead of outside it.

Momentum as the Only Moat Left

In the age of open-source AI, anyone can clone your product. Speed, saturation, and momentum become the new defensibility. Pieter Levels summarized this best:

“Everyone can build apps now. But not everyone can get attention.”

Roy claimed Meta offered him $1B and that Elon Musk reached out. Even if exaggerated, the perception itself became a growth loop.

Avi Schiffmann and friend.com: Blueprint for Viral First Launches

Roy cited Avi Schiffmann, founder of friend.com, as a direct influence. Avi’s viral-first, build-later approach became the template for Cluely’s entire launch strategy.

The insight: even half-baked tools can thrive if the story lands.

Cluely’s features weren’t ready—but its narrative was undeniable.

Roy Lee as Founder Archetype: Audience Meets Engineering

Paul Graham once said the best founders are technical. In 2025, the most dangerous ones are both technical and viral. Roy isn’t just a coder—he’s an audience founder.

He understands the distribution game as well as the engineering one. That blend—of showmanship, storytelling, and software—is what defines the next-gen builder.

“I’m the most extroverted person you’ve ever met,” Roy said. “My life is crazy so I might as well quintuple down.”

His personality is the marketing engine. He doesn’t just launch products. He stars in them.

What Cluely Actually Sells

As @menhguin put it, Cluely doesn’t sell software—it sells the dream of skipping the corporate grind. The story of a Harvard reject turned Columbia dropout who beat the system.

It’s engineered for every comp-sci student who didn’t land their Meta internship. For anyone who believes being clever should beat being obedient.

Hat Tip to Sourcery, a16z, and Brett Malinowski for the insights.

Top Tweets of the day

1/

TIL on X, you can promote a product without mentioning its an ad. I'm sure many brands are exploiting this.

2/

Pretty funny how you have to get approvals for all past freelancers in written format. "Built to sell" is a book on similar topic.

3/

Delve's story is badass. They spent ~$6k to make $500k. That's a 83x ROI.

Expect more B2B startups to do stuff like this. Better than cold emails.

Rabbit Holes

1. AI is Going to Break SAAS Pricing Models—And That's Breaking VC by Nate B. Jones

2. The vibe(ish) coding loop that actually produces production quality code by /r/ClaudeAI

3. Pricing is a process and how we validated our technology by pricing gold by

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