# How Cal AI went viral with a paid influencer army

> Zach Yadegari, 19, built a calorie-tracking app into a thirty-million-dollar business in two years by paying influencers to post about it.
- Title: How Cal AI went viral with a paid influencer army · TechCrunch
- Summary: Zach Yadegari, 19, built a calorie-tracking app into a thirty-million-dollar business in two years by paying influencers to post about it. Cal AI founder…
- Keywords: zach yadegari, cal ai, myfitnesspal, influencer marketing, startups, techcrunch disrupt, persona ai, technology, Cal, went, viral, paid
- Source: TechCrunch — https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/15/when-it-came-to-cal-ais-viral-success-a-small-army-of-influencers-paid-off
- Author: Lucas Ropek
- Published: 2026-10-15T23:44:56+00:00
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: zach yadegari, cal ai, myfitnesspal, influencer marketing, startups, techcrunch disrupt, persona ai, technology
## Nineteen-year-old founder's viral app
Zach Yadegari founded Cal AI, an AI-fueled calorie tracking app, in two thousand twenty-four. At nineteen, he has already achieved viral success and spoken about it at TechCrunch Disrupt.
## Thirty million dollars in two years
Cal AI generated over thirty million dollars in revenue in two years. MyFitnessPal acquired the company for an undisclosed amount in March.
## One influencer post, a thousand users
An early sign of success came when an influencer's post about Cal AI led to approximately a thousand new users over two days. Yadegari realised the strategy could work at scale.
## Recruiting influencers as fast as possible
Yadegari said the company started recruiting influencers rapidly and paying them to post. He described the results as linear and extremely fast, with each post converting viewers into users.

> we started recruiting influencers as fast as we could, paying as many people as possible to start posting for us
## Paying for reach and results
Cal AI negotiated rates with influencers, promising payouts for a certain scale of reach. Yadegari noted many influencers are broke college kids who want cash and will keep posting until targets are met.

> we'll pay you this, but we need to get us at least this amount of use and keep posting until you get there
## Finding tight-knit communities
The biggest part of Cal AI's strategy was finding influencers with tight communities whose reach could be quantified. These influencers had loyal followers who trusted their recommendations.

> finding influencers that had very tight communities
## Yadegari's next venture raises ten million
Yadegari has launched Persona, a new AI agent startup that has already raised ten million dollars. The company aims to make computing seamless with human life through a personal AI assistant.
## Key takeaway

Cal AI founder Zach Yadegari revealed at TechCrunch Disrupt that paying a small army of influencers to promote his app drove its viral success and thirty million dollars in revenue before its acquisition by MyFitnessPal.