In 2025, an American high school student went viral for an unexpected reason: he had been rejected by 15 of the 18 colleges he applied to. The detail that set social media on fire: his app was already bringing in around $30 million in annual revenue, according to Entrepreneur magazine.
A simple idea: photograph your plate
Counting calories is tedious: you have to look up every food, estimate portions, write everything down. Cal AI’s idea fits in one sentence: take a photo of your meal and let the AI do the estimate. Zach Yadegari launched it in May 2024 with two friends, Henry Langmack and Blake Anderson.
From teen app to acquisition by MyFitnessPal
- Around $30 million in annual revenue in 2025 (Entrepreneur).
- Over 15 million downloads and over $40 million in cumulative revenue (TechCrunch, Fitt Insider).
- Acquired by MyFitnessPal, the leader in nutrition tracking, with the deal closed in December 2025 and announced on March 2, 2026.
AI was not the product: it was the way to eliminate a chore.
Users do not pay for “AI”, they pay to stop weighing and logging every food.
These stories are real, but they are exceptions.
For every success in the headlines, thousands of projects never take off. What you can copy is not the result, it is the method.
What you can learn from it
- Look for a tedious, repetitive task that AI can make instant.
- Build the simplest possible version and launch it fast.
- Charge a small subscription from the start.
- Age and degrees matter less than the ability to ship.
What if you built your own tool with AI?
One-to-one vibe coding course by video: we start from your idea and put it online together, step by step.
Sources: Entrepreneur, CNBC (September 6, 2025), TechCrunch (March 2, 2026), MyFitnessPal press release (GlobeNewswire), Fitt Insider.