Rudy Arora and Sarthak Dhawan: Their Successful AI Startup

Rudy Arora and Sarthak Dhawan: A Fruitful Friendship

Rudy Arora and Sarthak Dhawan, two childhood friends, made the bold decision to leave university to fully dedicate themselves to their startup specializing in artificial intelligence. Their company, focused on an AI-based learning tool, has generated over $13 million in revenue during its short existence. Dhawan emphasized that the use of AI in coding has allowed their startup to progress rapidly, although he noted a slight decline in his programming skills.

The Initial Idea

The idea of starting a business was not initially driven by the ambition to build a financial empire. Rudy Arora explains that their primary intention was to develop something practical, market it modestly, and use the profits to fund their studies. Sarthak Dhawan and he grew up in the suburbs of Dallas, where they met in middle school. Their shared passion for tinkering and creating pushed them to explore innovative projects together.

The application they developed stemmed from a problem they encountered during their transition from high school to university in 2023. Rudy was a freshman at Northwestern University, while Sarthak was enrolled at Duke. They launched their application in January 2024, and by March 2025, it was generating nearly $500,000 per month. Although their parents found their decision to drop out of university surprising, it made perfect sense to them.

A Well-Considered Decision

By the end of their sophomore year, Rudy and Sarthak decided to fully commit to their application. Rudy confides that this decision was not difficult to make. In hindsight, he even thinks they could have left university earlier, although he acknowledges the risks associated with an early dropout.

Early Successes

Sarthak Dhawan was introduced to coding by his brother at a young age. In his freshman year of high school, he developed his first major application, a customized version of his school district's grade-checking app, which gained popularity in Texas. This experience gave him the certainty that he wanted to dedicate his life to creating useful tools for others.

Rudy Arora, on his part, developed a marketplace to help people find Christmas light installers, a need he identified in his neighborhood. This experience taught them the importance of creating products that address real needs and interacting with customers to refine their ideas.

A Solution to a Personal Problem

Upon arriving at university in the fall of 2023, Rudy and Sarthak realized that taking good notes while attending classes was a challenge. They knew that AI could transform complex texts into more accessible formats, as they had already used it for their studies. They decided to create a product that integrates these features into a unique workflow. Users can record their classes or add study materials, and the AI transforms them into notes, flashcards, and quiz questions.

Rapid Growth Through TikTok

The development and launch of the application took about three to four months. Operating on a freemium model, the app initially attracted its first users through an original method: Sarthak distributed cafeteria cookies to students in exchange for downloading the app.

Rudy then used TikTok to promote their application, posting several videos a day. One of these videos went viral, significantly accelerating their growth. To maintain this momentum, Rudy recruited friends and creators with smaller audiences to produce content, paying them $5 per video with a bonus for virality.

A Small but Effective Team

Currently, the company employs six full-time engineers, allowing them to produce an impressive amount of code and products each week. Rudy emphasizes that this would have been unimaginable a few years ago. Thanks to AI, they can operate with a small team, equivalent to the work of a team ten times larger. With only 10 full-time employees, they have already surpassed $13 million in lifetime revenue.

A Thoughtful Dropout

Rudy Arora acknowledges that university offers valuable opportunities to recruit future employees or co-founders. He and Sarthak have recruited members from their respective universities to join their company. While they appreciated the university environment, they found that juggling studies and developing their application was too time-consuming.

Before dropping out, they could not hire full-time employees as they were still students themselves. After leaving university, they were able to move faster by recruiting others to work full-time on their project. However, Rudy warns against premature dropout without a concrete return on investment, noting that too many people leave their studies with only an idea or at a very early stage of development.