Fireflies AI Grew from 2000 Dollars to 16 Million Users Without Spending on Marketing

Krish Ramineni, co-founder of Fireflies.ai, saw something peculiar during his time at Microsoft: only top executives had assistants to help with scheduling, note-taking, and follow-ups. Why should such a luxury be limited to just the C-suite? He envisioned a world where every worker had an AI-powered executive assistant, one that could handle mundane but essential tasks like transcribing meetings, summarizing key points, and organizing discussions.

Eight years ago, this idea seemed far-fetched. AI technology simply wasn’t mature enough to execute such a vision. But over time, as AI capabilities rapidly evolved, Ramineni and his co-founder, Sam Udotong, knew that their idea could finally be realized. With just $2,000 each, they set out to build what would eventually become Fireflies.ai, an AI-powered meeting assistant that integrates seamlessly into workplace conversations.

Most startups burn through large advertising budgets to acquire users, but Fireflies took a different route—organic word-of-mouth. The product itself became the best marketing tool. If one person used Fireflies in a meeting, everyone else saw it in action. The moment they witnessed its ability to automatically take notes and generate summaries, they were intrigued. Many signed up, creating a natural growth loop.

“The best marketing is when your product sells itself,” Ramineni explained. “We focused entirely on building something that people found useful, and once they did, they started sharing it. That organic loop helped us grow rapidly without spending on ads or promotions.”

This strategy propelled Fireflies to 16 million users without a dollar spent on marketing, proving that a truly valuable product doesn’t always need aggressive advertising—it simply needs to solve a real problem.

Ramineni’s career took an unconventional turn early on. He was one of the youngest product managers at Microsoft, securing the role at just 20 or 21. His rapid academic trajectory—taking seven to eight courses per semester—allowed him to graduate early, making him stand out.

At Microsoft, he was suddenly working alongside people in their 40s and 50s. The challenge was clear: “How seriously will they take me?” he often wondered. But he quickly realized that age mattered far less than ownership, results, and clear communication.

Despite a promising career in big tech, he chose to leave it all behind—not out of certainty, but curiosity. “I wanted to do something interesting, something where I could work for myself and optimize for learning,” he said. He recognized that when young, there’s a unique freedom to experiment. With no mortgage or family responsibilities, he could afford to take risks.

“If Fireflies didn’t work out, I could always return to big tech,” he reasoned. But instead of returning, he and his co-founder spent years grinding, iterating, and figuring out what would stick.

Building a startup without substantial funding meant living frugally. Ramineni and Udotong each put in $2,000, with Ramineni relying on savings from Microsoft to cover rent and expenses. His co-founder had even less, just a few hundred dollars left after their initial investment.

For nearly four years, they weren’t making real money, but they persisted because they believed in what they were building. Their workspace was wherever they could find free Wi-Fi. They worked from coffee shops, ordering the cheapest item just to justify sitting there for hours. They worked from mall food courts and borrowed extra office space whenever someone offered it. Even as Fireflies grew, they avoided renting an office, ultimately deciding to go fully remote—a move that seemed unconventional at the time.

After countless iterations, they finally zeroed in on a universal pain point which was meetings. They were taking a lot of them, and they saw firsthand how inefficient note-taking and conversation tracking could be.

Many dismissed the idea. Critics argued that AI couldn’t reliably transcribe meetings and summarize discussions, that note-taking was subjective, and that if it were possible, large companies would have already done it. But Ramineni and Udotong saw the problem differently. Most people dislike taking notes, and even if AI wasn’t perfect, a 95% accurate summary was far better than no notes at all.

They also made a critical bet: AI would continue improving, and costs would eventually drop. By focusing on human behavior what people actually needed rather than just what the technology could do. They built something genuinely useful. By 2019, they had their first paying customers.

Unlike many startups that raise millions early and immediately spend on flashy offices, Fireflies remained lean. Ramineni lived at home in California and commuted to San Francisco. When he finally moved, he split a two-bedroom apartment with two friends and converted the living room into his bedroom. His family questioned why he had left a high-paying job at Microsoft for this scrappy lifestyle, but he remained focused.

One of the best pieces of advice he received came from a millionaire entrepreneur who told him, “You want seven out of ten people to think you’re crazy. If no one thinks your idea is crazy, you’re not pushing the outer limits of your potential.”

Today, Fireflies has 16 million users and is still growing—all because they stayed committed to solving a real problem without chasing hype.

Fireflies initially made its mark on video conferencing platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet. But meetings aren’t limited to video calls, so the company launched a mobile app for iOS and Android to extend its capabilities to in-person conversations.

The Fireflies mobile app records, transcribes, summarizes, and organizes discussions with over 90% accuracy in more than 60 languages. Unlike competitors, Fireflies offers unlimited free transcription for in-person meetings—a major advantage in the AI transcription space.

“As more organizations embrace hybrid meetings, we want to empower productivity whether teams are virtual, in-person, or a mix of both,” Ramineni said. “Our mobile app brings the same AI transcription and summarization capabilities to physical meetings.”

In addition to its mobile expansion, Fireflies recently launched an integration with Any.do, a popular task management tool with over 40 million users. The integration eliminates the manual effort of logging meeting action items, instead automatically extracting them and organizing them within Any.do.

This feature ensures that action items don’t get lost, allowing teams to focus on execution rather than administrative tasks. Each task includes key details like the meeting title and a direct link to the full recording, making follow-ups seamless.

For Ramineni, long-term thinking is what separates truly successful companies from the rest. Short-term optimization for quick wins often leads to stagnation, while disciplined, patient execution creates lasting impact.

“If you’re not pushing forward, someone else is—and they’ll eat your lunch,” he said. The moment a company gets comfortable, it starts declining.

Ultimately, money isn’t the end goal. “People don’t work just for money; they work because they care about something,” he explained. That’s why even successful founders rarely retire—they find meaning in building and solving problems.