In a tech landscape often dominated by "vibe coding," Zach Yadegari, the 18-year-old founder of Cal AI, presents a refreshing contrast. Alongside his co-founder, Henry Langmack, Yadegari's journey is reminiscent of classic entrepreneurial tales. Since launching in May, Cal AI has achieved remarkable milestones, including over 5 million downloads within just eight months. According to Yadegari, the app boasts a customer retention rate exceeding 30% and generated more than $2 million in revenue last month.
While TechCrunch has not independently verified these impressive download and revenue statistics, Cal AI maintains a commendable 4.8-star rating on the Apple App Store, supported by approximately 66,000 reviews. Additionally, the app has surpassed 1 million downloads on Google Play, also holding a 4.8-star rating based on around 75,000 reviews. The core concept of Cal AI is straightforward yet effective: users can take a picture of their food, and the app will automatically log the calories and macros for them.
Though the idea is not entirely unique—competitors like MyFitnessPal and SnapCalorie also offer similar features—Cal AI differentiates itself by leveraging advanced technology. The app is built using cutting-edge models from Anthropic and OpenAI, along with RAG to enhance accuracy. It is trained on open-source food calorie and image databases sourced from platforms like GitHub. “We have found that different models perform better with different foods,” Yadegari explained in an interview with TechCrunch.
Throughout the development process, Yadegari and Langmack faced several technical challenges, such as accurately recognizing ingredients from food packaging or amid disorganized bowls of food. Their persistence has led to the creation of an app that claims to achieve 90% accuracy, a benchmark that seems to satisfy many users aiming to monitor their dietary intake.
Yadegari is increasingly gaining recognition for his entrepreneurial success. Unlike many of his peers who are just beginning to explore coding, he was already proficient in Python and C during his middle school years. At just 16, Yadegari founded his first business, which he sold for $100,000 to gaming company FreezeNova. His entrepreneurial journey began during the pandemic when schools distributed Chromebooks, leading students to seek access to unblocked games. Seizing this opportunity, he developed a website named “Totally Science” that provided access to these games without being blocked by school filters.
After selling his first venture, Yadegari and Langmack immersed themselves in the tech community, watching Y Combinator videos and engaging with fellow coders on X (formerly Twitter) to brainstorm new ideas. It was there that they connected with Blake Anderson, another young coder who would later join them as a co-founder at Cal AI. Anderson gained recognition for his innovative consumer apps, including RizzGPT and Umax, which provide ChatGPT-based dating advice.
Yadegari and Langmack’s journey took them to San Francisco, where they lived in a hacker house while developing their app prototype. This experience, however, led Yadegari to a pivotal realization. Despite the allure of the classic Silicon Valley dropout narrative, he found himself valuing education and expressed a desire to attend college. “Living in a hacker house was fun and enlightening, but surrounded by older individuals, I realized that if I didn’t pursue higher education, this could be my future,” he reflected.
While Yadegari has yet to finalize his college plans, he and Langmack are thoroughly enjoying their entrepreneurial journey with Cal AI. The team has expanded to include Jake Castillo, a 28-year-old COO responsible for influencer marketing, along with eight full-time employees, including developers, a designer, and social media managers. As they continue to refine their app and enhance user experience, the future looks promising for these young innovators in the tech industry.
