We at the UC Irvine ANTrepreneur Center are excited to highlight student entrepreneurs and share their personal experiences, achievements, and brilliant insights. We invite you to join us as we celebrate these ANTrepreneurs and get inspired by their stories.
At UC Irvine, our student entrepreneurs are accomplishing great things as they pursue their dreams of entrepreneurship. As these young innovators grow and evolve, we at the ANTrepreneur Center are always excited to check in and see how they are progressing.
In 2024, our Director Ryan Foland met with UC Irvine students Rishi Srihari (Computer Science) and Abhigyan (Abhi) Arya (Computer Science and Engineering) to learn about their startup Opennote. Since this initial interview, the team has gone on to raise funds, go viral, and even be accepted in the prestigious Y Combinator startup accelerator. To learn about everything the team has accomplished in the past year, Ryan sat down with Rishi and Abhi again to get their first-hand account of the exciting news and updates.
Ryan: Ahoy Abhi and Rishi; I’m excited to see you again and catch up! I know a ton has happened since we last met, but before we get into that, let’s start at the beginning. Can you explain how Opennote came to life?
Rishi: It’s good to see you again, Ryan! To talk about the beginning of Opennote, we have to go back to our first year of college. We had gotten through about half of our freshman year at UC Irvine when we realized that lectures were making learning feel harder than it needed to be. Hours of one-size-fits-all presentations left us feeling more confused than when we walked in, and we saw classmates struggling with material that just didn’t click, while professors were stretched too thin to give everyone the personal attention they needed.
Having worked in tutoring, we knew effective teaching was possible but had never seen a solution that truly addressed what students were struggling with, so we decided to build one.
Ryan: For those who might not be familiar with Opennote, can you explain what it is and how it works?
Rishi: Opennote is the AI tutor that lives in your notes. Instead of learning through separate chat windows or apps, Feynman works right where you’re already thinking—inside your actual notes and journals.
Feynman knows your writing style, automatically connects to your Google Drive and Notion to understand your existing work, and can proactively generate custom videos, graphs, and whiteboards directly inline as you write. No more switching between apps or losing your train of thought.
We rebuilt the platform this way because we realized you don’t learn in a chat window—you learn in your notes, your docs, your messy folders full of half-finished thoughts. Learning should feel natural and happen right where your ideas already live.
Ryan: As we revisit the start of Opennote, let’s talk about the campus resources that helped you during development. How has the ANTrepreneur Center supported you?
Abhi: The team at the ANTrepreneur Center were the first people to hear about Opennote back in April 2024. It started when we built the MVP for Opennote at LA Hacks and initially approached them with what was actually a Vision Pro-based idea, since the headset had just come out and we knew the Center had recently acquired one. The fact that they were willing to let us borrow the Vision Pro for the hackathon was an immediate sign of the level of support they’d provide.
Every step of the way since then, we’ve felt like we can come to the ANTrepreneur Center for anything we need to support our growth. Whether it’s been connecting us with mentors, providing workspaces, or just being a sounding board for ideas, they’ve been incredibly helpful and supportive throughout our journey. Having that kind of institutional backing from day one has been invaluable—it’s given us the confidence to take bigger risks and move faster knowing we have that support system behind us.
Ryan: In our previous interview, we talked about your team competing in LA Hacks. Looking back, how did participating in LA Hacks spark the momentum that ultimately led to building a company?
Abhi: Despite building a very flawed, barebones version of Opennote’s video generation tool at LA Hacks, it proved as a great proof of concept for what could be possible if we made learning more interactive. Judges, students, and mentors at the hackathon loved the product and its potential, and the positive feedback motivated us to continue to iterate and see how we could turn it into a more polished product that students could get tangible use out of.
Ryan: What were some key moments or milestones that helped you gain early traction with users? Was there a specific turning point?
Rishi: For us, the easiest answer to user growth was to be authentic. In the context of a learning platform, showing users that we were students solving the problem for ourselves seemed to resonate very positively and helped motivate new users to join the platform.
Our wildest turning point was a week after we filmed a product demo in the kitchen of Riishi’s UC Irvine housing. We didn’t think much of it at the time, but soon after, we saw a lot of users coming to the platform from YouTube. When we went to check, we’d gained 100k views on the video. For a few days after, we gained thousands of users per day, which helped us rapidly scale the company and product and helped form a lot of our company’s values.
Ryan: Tell me more about that. How did you decide to post your viral video and how did it impact your growth?
Abhi: Leading up to us filming the video, we had spent more than a month with our heads down, building the entire Opennote platform from scratch again. We were super proud of the product, but we worried that no one would care. So we decided to bring some of my camera equipment to Rishi’s apartment and film a walkthrough demo of the platform in the kitchen.
It was a simple video, but it highlighted our genuine belief in a future of truly interactive education, and that resonated with hundreds of thousands of people. This initial launch video was definitely the “moment” that got Opennote’s name out there and kickstarted the growth and development momentum that we’ve carried ever since.
Ryan: As your user base started growing, what were some of the biggest challenges you faced, and how did you handle them?
Rishi: The biggest issue that we’ve seen is the fact that you can’t exactly learn how to build a product at scale until you are faced with it. When building Opennote, we always thought that we were making the right decisions and always doing things (both software and businesswise) that would work out well. When we had to rapidly scale up from just a few of our friends to thousands of users, there were so many different things that we had to resolve and improve, including increasing site reliability, learning how to handle lots of inbound interest and interactions, and most importantly, platform security.
Ryan: As you’ve grown, I’m sure fundraising has also been a serious matter to consider. What was it like going through the fundraising process as undergraduate founders? What were some of your takeaways?
Rishi: It was definitely a very foreign experience for us, but it taught us a ton about the venture process and what goes into running a business outside of the development. The biggest lesson I learned during our fundraising was that you should always remember that you’re in the driver’s seat—they want to invest in you (especially if you have notable growth or traction).
When you’re new to fundraising and venture capital, it’s a natural tendency to feel like you’re subject to their terms since they’re giving you the money to run your business. But the reality is that good investors are looking for exceptional founders to partner with, not charities to donate to. If you have strong metrics and execution capability, you have leverage—use it to be selective about investors, negotiate favorable terms, and don’t be afraid to walk away from those who don’t align with your vision. The best VCs will actually respect you more for having conviction, so don’t just take the first term sheet that comes your way.
Abhi: The greatest lesson I learned is how to handle investor lines of questioning. Unlike speaking with friends or platform users, investors may not fully understand your product until you walk them through it during the call. Your job is to explain your work clearly and concisely, highlighting both the purpose and the numbers that back it up.
An investor pitch is more about your ability to run a company, rather than be a participant, and investors look for speech with agency and confidence. To that end, treating the pitch like a conversation, and not a presentation, allows things to flow more naturally and gives you confidence, regardless of the questions. Being relaxed helps the investor, who’s placing trust in you, understand you and remain engaged. This lets them build a greater understanding of your product and its purpose as well as your abilities as a founder; all of which are beneficial to your pitch.
Ryan: Speaking of serious matters and big decisions, you decided to take a gap year to pursue Opennote full time. Can you walk us through what went into that decision—what were the biggest factors you weighed, and how did you ultimately know it was the right move?
Rishi: Since we launched in February and momentum started picking up, most days sort of felt like a juggling act between schoolwork and Opennote work. Frankly, we enjoyed the latter much more, but the decision to take leave was still daunting at first. The uncertainty of leaving the school system for the first time in our lives was scary, but as time went on and we continued to build and grow the company, the level of gratification we got from doing impactful work and seeing tangible value being added to other students’ lives made it worth it.
We eventually decided while going through our pre-seed fundraising round that this is exactly the work we want to be doing long term, and there would be no better opportunity to take the risk in order to make the impact we aspired for.
Ryan: Well your risk definitely paid off! I heard that you’ve been accepted into Y Combinator (YC). Congratulations! Can you walk us through that application process and what it felt like to get accepted?
Abhi: It was surreal to be admitted into a program that accepted so many of our biggest inspirations. The application process itself is quite straightforward but definitely requires careful thought and conditioning. The YC application has a written portion and, if you’re invited, an interview portion. The written application is deceptively simple but really forces you to be clear and honest—it asks direct questions about your team, what problem you’re solving, and why you’re the one to solve it.
We spent a lot of time making our answers tight and genuine, making sure we showed not just ambition but a real connection to the problem. If you’re invited to an interview, it’s famously intense: just ten minutes of rapid-fire questions from the partners, drilling into every detail to see how well you really understand your idea. The whole thing goes by in a blur, and oftentimes leaves you confused about how it actually went. But when we got the notification for a follow up acceptance call, it honestly didn’t feel real—just a rush of excitement, gratitude, and a bit of disbelief.
Ryan: What are you most excited to learn or accomplish during your time at YC?
Rishi: What excites us most about YC is being surrounded by people who’ve navigated the startup journey successfully over and over again—partners who’ve seen every possible challenge and know how to guide founders through them. As young, first-time founders, that early support and mentorship is invaluable. We’re not just looking for advice on tactics or growth hacks; we want to learn how to think like experienced entrepreneurs, how to make better decisions under pressure, and how to avoid the pitfalls that trip up most startups.
Beyond the incredible network and connections, we’re genuinely excited to absorb as much as we can from the YC partners every single day. These are people who’ve been part of building some of the most successful companies in the world, and having direct access to that level of experience feels like an incredible opportunity to accelerate our own learning.
And then there’s the cohort itself—being surrounded by other ambitious founders who all have their own grand visions they’re working toward. There’s something energizing about being in an environment where everyone’s pushing boundaries and thinking big. We want to come out of YC not just with a stronger company, but as better founders who can tackle whatever comes next.
Ryan: That’s awesome; I’m so excited for you and your journey! Speaking about the entrepreneurial journey, what advice would you give to other UC Irvine undergraduates who have an idea but don’t know where to start?
Rishi: Don’t focus on coming up with startup ideas—focus on finding real problems. The most successful startups solve a core problem for a specific group of people, and often the best place to start is with yourself. What “hair on fire” problems do you or the people around you experience regularly? Start by identifying those pain points. Turn your attention to creating simple solutions for them. Trust your instincts and try building something, even if it’s incredibly basic.
Once you have an idea, talk to real people to see if your solution actually helps solve their problem. Listen to their feedback, and keep refining your product until it truly makes their lives better. Keep iterating based on what you learn, and you’ll be much closer to building something valuable and lasting.
Ryan: Well thank you two again for sitting down with me. I truly can’t wait to see what’s next for you. Can we close this out with a teaser? What can we expect to see from Opennote in the next six–12 months?
Rishi: We recently made a huge change to the platform to be more of a notetaking suite with a tutor that lives in your notes that can reference your existing notes, apply edits to your work, generate images and videos, and more. This new route has been really exciting for us because it allows us to push the boundaries of what an AI learning companion can actually do.
In the next six-12 months, we’re focused on making Feynman even more proactive and intelligent about understanding your learning patterns. We want it to not just respond when you ask but to anticipate what you need, like suggesting practice problems when you’re studying for an exam or automatically connecting concepts across different subjects you’re learning.
The goal is to make learning feel completely seamless—where educational AI doesn’t feel like a separate, disconnected tool you have to think about using, but naturally works with you and meets you where you are to learn intuitively.
Visit the Opennote website to learn more and keep up with the team’s latest news and updates. Inspired by the Opennote team and interested in starting your entrepreneurial journey? Then visit the ANTrepreneur Center website to learn more about programming, speaker series, Micro-Internships, funding, and more. You can also learn more about the Center’s collaborations with Blackstone LaunchPad, Tech Coast Angels, Tech Coast Venture Network, OC Startup Council, and SoCal Celebrates Entrepreneurship. Keep up with the Center’s latest news by following them on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.