【AIbase Report】A startup named Turbo AI is growing at an incredible pace: it has surpassed 5 million users, achieved eight-figure annual recurring revenue, and added more than 20,000 new users daily. More surprisingly, the company, based in Los Angeles, was founded in early 2024 by two university dropouts aged just 20: Rudy Arora and Sarthak Dhawan.
The founders said the company experienced explosive growth over the past six months, with users increasing from 1 million to 5 million, while maintaining profitability during this period. Their entrepreneurial inspiration came from a highly relatable pain point: students find it difficult to take notes while listening in class. To address this, the two developed Turbolearn as a side project, which can record classes and automatically generate notes, flashcards, and quizzes. The product initially spread among students at Duke University and Northwestern University, then expanded to campuses such as Harvard and MIT.
Turbo AI's core functions revolve around "record—summarize—interactive learning." Users can upload course recordings, PDFs, YouTube videos, or reading materials, and the AI will automatically generate clear study notes and interactive quizzes. Dhawan said many students are willing to spend hours completing dozens of quizzes, "unless it's really effective, no one would do that." He emphasized that Turbo not only saves time but also significantly improves memory efficiency.
As the product's influence expands, Turbo AI's audience has gone far beyond students. Now, lawyers, doctors, consultants, and analysts at companies like Goldman Sachs and McKinsey use it to summarize reports, extract key points, and even convert document content into podcast audio. Because of this, the company renamed its app from the original Turbolearn to the more general Turbo AI.
The two founders have been friends since high school and have collaborated on multiple projects. Dhawan previously created a recommendation app called UMax, which topped the App Store, attracted 20 million users, and generated $6 million in annual revenue; while Arora excels at using social media strategies for viral growth.
Different from many AI startups that rely on funding for expansion, Turbo AI is cautious about capital. Since its inception, the company has raised only $750,000 in seed funding, yet it has always maintained positive cash flow and profitability. Currently, the company has about 15 employees, and the core team maintains close collaboration with the student community at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
In terms of business model, Turbo AI uses a subscription-based approach, with students paying around $20 per month. The founders revealed they are conducting A/B testing to explore pricing structures more suitable for students' spending power. Turbo AI's product sits between manual tools like Google Docs and fully automated note-taking apps like Otter and Fireflies, allowing users to choose whether to have the AI complete the notes or collaborate with the AI to record, a flexible model that helps it stand out in a competitive market.
"When students think of artificial intelligence notes or learning tools, Turbo
