At a time when artificial intelligence is revolutionizing every aspect of our lives, a 17-year-old high school senior is making waves in the field of health and fitness technology. Zach Yadegari, co-founder and CEO of Cal AI, leveraged AI and innovative marketing strategies to build a nutrition tracking app that takes on traditional industry giants.
From coding lessons to multi-million dollar ventures
“I’ve been really interested in starting a company since I was 10 years old,” says Yadegali, who began his entrepreneurial journey by teaching coding lessons for $30 an hour. “I started scaling up. I posted an ad in a local Facebook group. I doubled the number of students I taught from one to two. Then that grew to three, and I started teaching 10-year-olds. He’s not the only one whose recently featured Apex team is following a similar path.
His early experiences with entrepreneurship, combined with inspiration from unexpected sources, shaped his business mindset. “After watching ‘The Social Network,’ I realized that exchanging time for money is not scalable,” Yadegali recalls. “Seeing Mark Zuckerberg and what he created really inspired me to achieve similar things and financial freedom at a young age.”
Path to Cal AI – Student engagement during COVID-19 classes
Prior to Cal AI, Mr. Yadegali demonstrated his entrepreneurial acumen during the COVID-19 pandemic. We know that schools are distributing Chromebooks to their students, so we created an unblocked gaming site that consolidates popular games in one place. The venture attracted 5 million users and was later sold for a six-figure sum.
Following this success, Yadegari teamed up with Henry Langmack, a colleague he met at a coding camp, to explore the consumer apps space. Their first venture, Grind Clock, a motivational alarm clock app with David Goggins-style wake-up calls, garnered 20,000 downloads in its first two weeks, but struggled to maintain growth. did.
Looking to find a way to scale, Yadegari reached out to Blake Anderson, who has built two multi-million download applications in the past six months. Mr. Anderson has agreed to provide capital and domain expertise and will join as an equal co-founder alongside Mr. Yadegali and Mr. Langmak. The first version of the app was underway, led by two teenagers.
disrupt a stagnant market
Cal AI stands out in a market that has seen little innovation for many years. The app offers comprehensive features not found in many existing competitors, including an extensive food database, barcode scanning, food label scanning, meal scanning, and natural language meal descriptions. Unlike competitors MyFitnessPal, Lose It!, MyNetDiary, Cronometer, and Lifesum, which primarily rely on manual input methods, Cal AI positions itself as a premium solution in this space.
“The truth is, these apps have been stagnant for years. No one was willing to innovate. This was a space waiting to be taken, and Cal AI was the disruptor. ,” Yadegari explains. “We are the fastest growing health and fitness app on the app store.”
Cal AI vs. Competitors: UI Comparison
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Innovative technology meets real-world needs
Launched in May 2024, Cal AI was born out of Yadegari’s personal frustration with existing nutrition tracking apps. “I was tracking my calories on MyFitnessPal,” he explains. “I quit after three days. It was so tedious to use the app and enter everything. It was so tedious and so annoying.”
Cal AI launched in May 2024. In numerous conversations, Anderson and Yadegali discussed their frustrations with existing nutrition tracking apps.
The app’s core technology uses AI-powered image recognition to estimate nutritional content, which differentiates it from its competitors. “According to our tests, our technology is 90% accurate when images are taken at a non-tilted angle in natural light,” Yadegari said. “This actually beats the nutrition label, which is up to 20% off calories. The FDA recognizes this.”
Rapid growth through innovative marketing
Within six months of launch, Cal AI achieved incredible metrics, including:
Over 1 million downloads $12 million in annual recurring revenue 17 full-time employees Tracks an average of 4 meals per day per user
The company’s success stems from what Yadegali calls a “fresh approach to influencer marketing.” Rather than relying on traditional advertising or agency-led influencer campaigns, Cal AI takes a more direct, relationship-based approach.
“Big companies fail because they don’t try hard enough,” Yadegali explains. “They don’t understand how to properly set up, scale, and adapt their marketing efforts in a fast-paced environment. It’s hard to keep up with today’s social media and AI landscape.”
Running a company while running a high school
Perhaps most notably, Mr. Yadegari is managing a growing company while maintaining his high school degree. “It’s tough being a 17-year-old and leading a team of 17 people, especially during the first half of each day, especially when you’re at school,” he admits. “I always message my team on Slack during class, but most of my calls are scheduled after class.”
The company’s leadership structure includes:
Henry (CTO): Leads a four-person development team Jake (COO): Oversees marketing operations Blake (CMO): High-level marketing strategy and product positioning
Cal AI team meets face-to-face for the first time.
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Cal AI has been particularly successful among young people, with its primary user base consisting of college students between the ages of 15 and 25. Although currently male-dominated, the app is starting to expand internationally by adding language support for different regions.
“We believe there is a larger market of people over 55 who want to stay healthy into later life, and we are exploring new strategies to position the app to all demographics of people. ” said Yadegali.
Future vision and personal crossroads
As Cal AI continues to grow, Yadegali has to make a pivotal decision about his future. “I was thinking about college a lot,” he recalls. “My plan at this point is to take a gap year right after my senior year to double down on Cal AI, focus completely on it, and build it to the largest scale possible.”
The company’s future plans include:
Incrementally improve AI accuracy beyond 90% Expand your user base beyond the current 15-25 age group Develop an influencer marketing platform to share internal tools Awareness of other products Build what Yadegari calls a “view generation platform” to increase
A generation of young technology leaders: students and founders
Cal AI’s success is part of a broader movement by young entrepreneurs to disrupt traditional industries. Henry Langmack, the company’s chief technology officer (also 17), has proven he can excel without any formal education. “Henry is the best CTO and programmer I’ve ever met, and he doesn’t have a degree,” Yadegari points out.
This youth-led technology revolution includes several other notable figures.
Kelechi Onyeama (21): Founded Social Wizard and generated $60,000 in monthly recurring revenue Alex Slater (19): Created Quittr and generated $30,000 in monthly recurring revenue Abbott Jones (17): Built an Amazon business and Generated $50,000 in revenue per month
Industry impact and broader trends: Investing in influencers and monitoring retention rates
Cal AI’s success highlights some emerging trends in the consumer apps space, particularly a shift away from traditional advertising methods. As Apple’s tracking transparency policy impacts Facebook’s advertising effectiveness, companies are increasingly turning to direct relationships with influencers for growth.
“Influencer marketing has always been difficult to track,” Yadegali explains. “We’ve never had ‘I spent $100 and got $200,’ but this is new for Facebook ads. The tracking for both is very similar right now, so in my opinion, Influencer marketing has become mainstream.”
However, the key to success lies in Cal AI’s user retention. Most existing nutrition apps struggle with that. According to Adjust.com’s analysis, the average 30-day health and fitness retention rate is less than 30%. “While we cannot publicly state our exact retention rates, Cal AI’s retention rates are within the range suggested by the article, and the same is true for our in-person gyms. “My hypothesis is that to some extent this is just a product issue, and there will always be heavy churn because health and fitness products require real discipline.” Yadegali said in an interview.
As Cal AI continues to evolve and expand, it serves as a compelling case study of how young entrepreneurs are reinventing traditional business models through technological innovation and creative marketing strategies. Whether Yadegari ultimately chooses to pursue higher education or continue founding companies full-time, his journey thus far has reflected the changing landscape of entrepreneurship in the digital age. is shown.
