Zach Yadegari has achieved remarkable success at just 19 years old, shortly after finishing high school. As the founder of Cal AI, an AI-driven calorie tracking application, he has watched his company gain massive viral attention over the past two years. Launched in 2024, Cal AI's rapid rise online was primarily driven by Yadegari's tactic of mobilizing a large network of influencers to endorse the product. The business brought in more than $30 million in revenue within two years and was picked up by MyFitness in March for an undisclosed sum.

Speaking about his social media approach onstage, Yadegari pointed out that an early indicator of traction occurred when a single influencer's post about them brought in roughly a thousand new users within 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. "What we saw was that it was a clear formula. 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."

The Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree shared with the audience that one aspect of the company's approach involved setting terms with influencers, offering specific payments in exchange for reaching a particular audience size. Many influencers are "broke college kids" who "just want cash," Yadegari remarked. "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."

Another key factor in their success was identifying the right influencers whose audience reach could be measured. "The biggest thing for us was finding influencers that had very tight communities," the founder explained. Yadegari, whose father was present in the audience, also gave credit to his family for allowing him the freedom to pursue his goals. When it came to higher education's role in his achievements, he was less enthusiastic.

"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, prompting laughter from the crowd. Earlier this month, Yadegari introduced Persona, a new AI agent startup that has already secured $10 million in funding. Yadegari described the "overarching mission" of Persona as aiming to "make computing seamless with human life." The company's personal AI assistant will "live anyplace with internet connection," he noted, spanning platforms like "iMessage, app, email, phone call." He further explained that what sets their vision for this AI assistant apart is the plan to create a "hardware ecosystem around" the app.