Cal AI grew into a viral sensation largely because its founder paid a lot of people to talk about it. Zach Yadegari, who only recently graduated from high school, told an audience at TechCrunch Disrupt on Thursday that the calorie tracking app’s rise came from recruiting influencers as quickly as he could.

Yadegari, 19, founded Cal AI in 2024. The AI-fueled app took off online over the following two years, and the company generated more than $30 million in revenue in that span. MyFitnessPal acquired Cal AI in March for an undisclosed amount.

The first sign that the strategy would work came from a single post. Yadegari said an influencer’s post about the company brought in about 1,000 new users over two days. “From there, we figured out, okay, this can actually work for us, and so we started recruiting influencers as fast as we could — paying as many people as possible to start posting for us,” he said.

He described the results as predictable. “What we saw was that it was a clear formula,” Yadegari said. “It was pretty linear, but it was extremely fast. I guess linear in the sense that every post they did would get a certain number of viewers that would convert.”

Money drove much of the deal-making. Yadegari said the company negotiated rates with influencers, promising specific payouts for specific levels of reach. He described many of the creators as “broke college kids” who “just want cash.” The terms were simple, he said. “You just ask them, okay, we’ll pay you this, but we need to get us at least this amount of use and keep posting until you get there.”

Choosing the right creators mattered as much as paying them. Yadegari said the team looked for influencers whose reach could be measured and whose audiences were tightly knit. “The biggest thing for us was finding influencers that had very tight communities,” he said.

Yadegari’s father sat in the audience. The founder credited his family with giving him the freedom to chase his ambitions. He was less generous toward higher education. “I think the only real reason to go to college is if you want to have a fun social time as a kid and be with other people,” he said, drawing laughter from the crowd.

Yadegari has already moved on to his next venture. Earlier this month, he launched Persona, an AI agent startup that has raised $10 million. He said the company’s “overarching mission” is to “make computing seamless with human life.” The personal AI assistant will “live anyplace with internet connection,” he said, including “iMessage, app, email, phone call.” Yadegari added that the company plans to build a “hardware ecosystem around” the app, which he said is one of the things that sets Persona apart.

This article was written with the assistance of AI.
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