In the AI startup boom, most teams are burning money for growth, while two 20-year-old American college students have quietly carved out a rare path: without relying on large-scale funding or price wars, they've grown their user base from 1 million to 5 million in just six months, achieving eight-figure annual recurring revenue and maintaining profitability all along. Their product, Turbo AI, has become a "learning cheat" for students at top universities like Harvard, MIT, and Duke.

The creation of Turbo AI originated from an ordinary classroom challenge. Co-founder and CEO Sarthak Dhawan recalls, "I was always torn between listening to lectures and taking notes - I couldn't write down what the teacher said, and if I focused on listening, I couldn't keep up with the notes." This dilemma sparked a simple yet precise idea: use AI to automatically turn lectures into structured notes, flashcards, and quizzes.

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Image source: Turbo AI

Initially, he and his friend Rudy Arora tested this tool called Turbolearn as a side project at Duke University and Northwestern University, but it quickly spread across campuses. Within a few months, users expanded to Ivy League schools, and the product evolved from simple lecture transcription into an intelligent learning platform that supports uploading PDFs, YouTube videos, and reading materials - now, uploading documents is more common than live recordings.

The core of Turbo AI is not just speech-to-text, but converting information into interactive learning assets. The system can not only generate summaries but also automatically create questions around key concepts, make flashcards, and provide an AI assistant that can answer questions anytime. Some students have even completed 75 questions in two hours, "if it wasn't really effective, no one would do it," says Dhawan.

Surprisingly, this tool originally designed for students is gradually penetrating the workplace. Analysts at Goldman Sachs and McKinsey use it to convert long reports into podcasts for commuting; lawyers and doctors rely on it to quickly extract professional documents. As a result, the product was renamed from "Turbolearn" to a broader "Turbo AI," upgrading its positioning to "AI Note-taking and Learning Assistant."

Although young, the two founders are already serial entrepreneurs. Dhawan previously developed a social advice app called UMax that topped the App Store, generating $6 million in annual revenue; Arora is skilled at using social media to drive user growth. However, they admit they only decided to drop out of university and fully commit to Turbo AI after realizing it could become a sustainable business.

Despite receiving offers from over 250 top institutions, they have raised only $750,000 so far and continue to maintain positive cash flow. "We don't want to grow just for the sake of growth," says Arora. Currently, the 15-person team is based in Los Angeles, closely engaging with UCLA and other university communities, continuously refining the product.

In terms of pricing, students pay about $20 per month, but the team is exploring more flexible options through extensive A/B testing, aiming to balance students' price sensitivity and the product's expansion toward professionals. Between fully automated tools like Otter and Fireflies and manual tools like Google Docs, Turbo AI has found a unique position: users can either let the AI handle everything or collaborate with the AI to create content.