While most college kids spent December cramming for finals, 19-year-old Zach Yadegari was selling his multimillion-dollar nutrition app.
MyFitnessPal acquired Cal AI, an AI-powered calorie-tracking app that Yadegari cofounded while he was in high school, late last year. The app officially launched in May 2024, amassing 10 million users and $30 million in annual revenue. While there are many reasons to sell an app — money, partnerships, shifting consumer trends — Yadegari said honest conversations between the founders solidified their decision.
“Ultimately, it came down to us discussing everyone’s priorities and goals in life. That framework really helped us come to a consensus of what we all wanted,” Yadegari told Business Insider.
For Yadegari, that meant financial freedom and the ability to pursue new projects.
“We want the legacy of Cal AI to live forever and continue to grow,” Yadegari, who is based in Miami, said. “At the same time, my life’s mission isn’t building a calorie tracking app.”
Even before Cal AI, Yadegari had been making a name for himself in the tech space. He sold his first app, Totally Science, an unblocked website that lets students play games during school, for $100,000 when he was 16.
In the months following the acquisition, Yadegari assembled a team to pursue a new business venture: Flow.
Go with the Flow
Flow is a brand that intends to host a suite of products geared toward productivity and improving people’s health.
The Flow Alarm Clock, released in March, helps people who hit snooze on their alarm clocks one too many times or spend their mornings doomscrolling. Customers must purchase a small, portable dock that can be placed anywhere in their home and download the Flow app.
On the Flow app, customers can set alarms and select which apps they’d like to block. When the alarm goes off, customers have to physically get up and tap their phone on the dock to turn it off. Tapping the dock also unblocks the apps.
Additionally, the Flow Alarm Clock can track users’ sleep patterns and record sleep sounds.
“I wanted to make something physical, but I didn’t want it to take a year of research and development,” Yadegari said. “It’s also something that would solve my own problems. I sometimes wake up, and I scroll on my phone for 30 minutes.”
Physical products are a new territory for Yedgari, but it’s one he’s been eyeing for a while. It doesn’t come without challenges, though.
“The elephant in the room is that we have to ship physical products and manufacture them,” Yadegari said. “We have to scale with the amount of supply that we carry, and that’s tricky. Shipping delays can also slow us down.”
Still, having experience from previously running a successful company has given Yadegari the confidence to start from scratch and try something new. Especially when the health and wellness industry is booming. The Global Wellness Institute said the wellness economy reached $6.8 trillion in 2024 and is forecast to hit $9.8 trillion by 2029.
“These are my favorite categories to work — health, productivity, and wellness — because they make a real impact on people’s lives,” he said.
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