5 million customers. Eight-figure annual recurring income. Twenty thousand new customers becoming a member of day by day. These are some strong numbers for a startup known as Turbo AI launched in early 2024 by Rudy Arora and Sarthak Dhawan, two 20-year-old school dropouts.
Most of this progress has come prior to now six months, the founders inform TechCrunch, throughout which their AI-powered note-taking and examine device grew from a million to 5 million customers, whereas remaining worthwhile.
They are saying the thought for Turbo stemmed from a classroom drawback many school college students face, which is making an attempt to take notes whereas taking note of a lecture on the identical time.
“I’d at all times wrestle with taking notes as a result of I simply couldn’t each hearken to the instructor and write on the identical time. I simply couldn’t do it,” stated CEO Dhawan. “Each time I attempted to take notes, I’d cease paying consideration. And after I listened, I couldn’t take notes. I used to be like, what if I might use AI?”
So the pair constructed Turbolearn as a facet mission to permit them to document lectures and mechanically generate notes, flashcards, and quizzes. They started sharing it with pals, then it unfold to classmates throughout Duke and Northwestern, the place they had been enrolled till dropping out this yr. Inside months, the app had reached different universities, together with Harvard and MIT.
The product takes the same old note-taker components—document, transcribe, summarize—and makes it interactive with examine notes, quizzes, and flashcards, together with a built-in chat assistant that explains key phrases or ideas.
Nevertheless, recordings in giant halls usually decide up background noise, so the founders constructed options that permit college students to add PDFs, lectures, YouTube movies, or readings as a substitute. That’s now a extra frequent use case than dwell lecture recordings.
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“College students will add a 30-page lecture and spend two hours going by means of 75 quiz questions in a row. You don’t try this until it’s actually working,” stated Dhawan, noting that college students love how the product saves time and helps them retain data.
It’s not simply college students utilizing Turbo AI, although—as mirrored by the title change from Turbolearn (a examine app) to Turbo AI (an AI notetaker and studying assistant). Professionals have adopted it too, together with consultants, attorneys, medical doctors, and even analysts at Goldman Sachs and McKinsey, the founders say. Some, as an illustration, add studies and use Turbo to generate summaries or convert them into podcasts they’ll hearken to on their commute.
Arora and Dhawan have been pals since center college and have collaborated on a number of initiatives over time.
Dhawan beforehand constructed UMax, an recommendation app that promised to make individuals extra engaging and reached #1 on the App Retailer with 20 million customers and $6 million in annual income. Arora, in the meantime, focuses on utilizing social media methods to drive explosive progress and entice thousands and thousands of customers.
Constructing viral apps is a uncommon ability. However regardless of the size of their earlier initiatives, the founders solely felt the necessity to drop out for Turbo as a result of they noticed a possibility to construct an enduring enterprise.
Nonetheless, not like many fast-growing AI corporations, they’re cautious about elevating an excessive amount of cash too early, having taken in solely $750,000 final yr.
“We raised that earlier than we had a variety of traction. Since then, we’ve had a variety of inbound curiosity, however we’re taking our time as a result of we’re cash-flow constructive and have been worthwhile our total time as an organization,” stated Arora, who added that their 15-person crew is predicated in Los Angeles and targeted on staying near pupil and creator communities at faculties like UCLA.
College students pay about $20 a month for the product, however the founders say they’re exploring different pricing choices to mirror the worth sensitivity of scholars, even because the app scales past the goal group. “Proper now, we’re experimenting with different pricing and operating a variety of A/B assessments to see what works,” Arora added.
Turbo AI sits between absolutely handbook instruments like Google Docs and absolutely automated note-takers like Otter or Fireflies. Customers can let the AI take notes or write alongside it, the founders say. That method has helped Turbo stand out whilst opponents like Y Combinator–backed YouLearn goal related pupil audiences.
“What’s cool now could be that when college students consider an AI notetaker or AI examine device, we’re the primary ones that come to thoughts,” Dhawan stated.
