Zach Yadegali has had tremendous success for a player coming out of high school. Yadegari, the founder of AI-powered calorie tracking app Cal AI, is only 19 years old, but his company has quickly risen to prominence over the past two years. At TechCrunch Disrupt on Thursday, Yadegari shared details of his incredible rise to fame.
Founded in 2024, Cal AI exploded with its presence on the internet thanks to Yadegari’s strategy of deploying a small number of influencers to promote the brand. The company generated more than $30 million in revenue in two years and was acquired by MyFitness in March for an undisclosed amount.
Yadeghari, who was on stage discussing his social strategy, noted that there was an early sign of success when an influencer’s post gained about 1,000 new users in two days.
“From there, we thought, this is actually going to work for us, and started hiring influencers as soon as possible. We paid as many people as possible to start posting for us,” he said. “What we saw was that it was a clear formula. It was pretty linear, but it was very fast. I think it was linear in the sense that every post that they posted was going to get a certain number of viewers that converted.”
The Forbes 30 Under 30 alum told the audience that part of his company’s strategy was to negotiate fees with influencers, promising them a certain amount of payment for a certain size of reach. Yadegali added that many influencers are “broken college students” who “just want money.” “Ask them. Okay, we’ll pay you this, but you need to get at least this amount of usage and keep posting until you get there.”
Another key element of success was finding the right influencers whose reach could be quantified. “The biggest thing for us was finding influencers with very close-knit communities,” the founders said.
Yadegali, whose father was in the audience, said his family gave him the freedom to pursue his ambitions. Does he attribute his success to higher education as well? Not much.
“I think the only real reason to go to college is because you want to have a fun social time as a kid and spend time with other people,” he said, drawing laughter from the audience.
Earlier this month, Yadegari also launched a new AI agent startup, Persona , which has already raised $10 million.
Yadegari said Persona’s “overarching mission” is to “make computing seamless with human life.” The company’s personal AI assistant can be used “anywhere you have an internet connection,” including “iMessage, apps, email, and phone calls,” he said. He added that part of the nature of the company’s plans for this AI assistant is to “build a hardware ecosystem around” the app.
If you make a purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This does not affect editorial independence.
