The storyHow they got there
Roy Lee built Interview Coder in early 2025 — an invisible desktop overlay that read coding problems on screen and fed real-time AI answers during technical interviews without being detected by screen-sharing software. The tool is ethically controversial and the founder was reportedly suspended from Columbia University, but the distribution mechanics are extraordinary.
The first customers came in week one from a viral Twitter/X video demonstrating the tool being used to pass a real Amazon technical interview. The video was engineered to provoke — it spread because people who hated the tool shared it as outrage, and people who wanted the tool shared it as discovery. The controversy was the distribution mechanism.
The channel mix was essentially a single channel: Twitter/X virality drove ~70%, press coverage in TechCrunch, Forbes, and the NY Post drove ~15%, user-generated content on YouTube and TikTok drove ~10%, and SEO tail searches ~5%. LinkedIn banned the account. Reddit banned posts. Each ban created more press and more curiosity. Controversy as distribution is a specific playbook — effective for generating short-term virality but with serious legal, ethical, and brand risks. Operating costs were approximately $2K/month in Vercel hosting and OpenAI API credits. Revenue started immediately and reportedly hit $1M ARR within 36 days.
Note: This case study is included for distribution mechanics only. The underlying product raises serious ethical concerns that founders should carefully consider before attempting to replicate.
Channel MixWhere the growth actually came from
Most case studies hand-wave channels. Here's the rough allocation — not in dollars spent, but in users acquired — across the routes that actually mattered.