This founder grew his app Cal AI to $50,000,000 in ARR And got acquired by MyFitnessPal in 18 months. Today I'm speaking with @jakecastilloooo, the co-founder behind Cal AI's growth. Getting the exact playbook that you can follow to grow an app business to 8-figures in revenue. Chapters: 0:00 Intro 0:56 From $9.50 in his bank account to 8-figures in revenue 7:30 The influencer playbook that made Cal AI grow 13:05 The right apps for Cal AI's strategy 17:32 How Jake evaluates influencers 22:16 How to DM influencers for your app 28:15 The simple hack that gets influencers interested 35:01 What it actually took to grow Cal AI 40:57 What it will take for you to grow your app 47:08 Final thoughts before you take the leap

I normally like to start the day with an uplifting, jovial GM. Not this morning. Scrolling through the timeline and seeing the amount of vitriol being directed at members of the Arc team simply because they’re South Asian, because of the colour of their skin, their accents or the way they look is genuinely embarrassing. And some of it isn’t even subtle. Web3 has spent years selling itself as the new frontier. Permissionless. Borderless. A great leveller where an individual developer can compete with a multi-billion-dollar company based on what they build. Yet apparently, for some people, “permissionless” stops the moment the people building look a little different to them. Let me make something very clear. Criticise the product. Criticise the launch. Criticise the token decisions, the strategy or the execution. That’s fair game. But if your investment thesis suddenly becomes “there are too many Indians on the team”, or you decide somebody is incompetent because they’re brown, that isn’t due diligence. It’s racism dressed up as market analysis. And before anyone starts confusing South Asian heritage with an inability to build world-class companies, here are a few names worth remembering: Google Sundar Pichai IS South Asian Microsoft Satya Nadella IS South Asian IBM Arvind Krishna IS South Asian FedEx Raj Subramaniam IS South Asian Adobe Shantanu Narayen IS South Asian Chanel Leena Nair IS South Asian GoDaddy Aman Bhutani IS South Asian HubSpot Yamini Rangan IS South Asian Wayfair Niraj Shah IS South Asian YouTube Neal Mohan IS South Asian Some of the largest and most influential companies on the planet are led by people of South Asian heritage. Talent doesn’t have a skin colour. Intelligence doesn’t have an accent. Innovation doesn’t belong to one nationality. And competence isn’t determined by whether somebody looks like the anonymous PFP judging them from the other side of a screen. The people being mocked on the timeline today are builders. Some of them may go on to become leaders of this industry and build things that materially move this space forward. Meanwhile, the people reducing them to their ethnicity will still be posting the same tired garbage from behind a PFP. - Judge people on what they build. - Judge them on their actions. - Judge them on their execution. But the moment you judge them on the colour of their skin or where their family comes from, you’ve told everyone far more about yourself than you ever did about them. Web3 needs to do better. A lot of YOU need to do better. And one final thing. If you’re South Asian, African, Middle Eastern, East Asian, or from any minority background, and you’re hiding behind a PFP because you’re worried people will judge you by your face, your name, your accent or where you come from: My DMs are ALWAYS open. You should never feel like you need to hide who you are to be taken seriously in this space. If you’re building, creating, learning or trying to make your mark, I’ll always have time for you. Web3 is supposed to open doors. Not make people feel they have to hide before they can walk through them. I have no requirement or need for a mass number of followers. I feel no need to pander to racists no matter how large your following. If you do not like me or my message pls unfollow me. I wish you ALL a GMGM.

Today we're launching Rene. A multiplayer-first iMessage agent you text like a friend. It has a browser, writes code, goes shopping, ships sites, makes slides and images. Not much it can’t do. It's been in my texts for four months. It found me a new office, preps me for every meeting, and polls the team for dinner options. No app or signup. Link below👇

I'm selling air Say the sentence the fastest, set the next one. Each round is 2 minutes The best way to get people to recognize your brand is to have the customer say its name. You can advertise your startup so every person has to say it out loud, and remember it forever. If you are outbid, you get 100% refunded. Join the free challenge → talkfast.space

We answered crypto’s most debated questions! 00:00 Intro 01:05 Memecoin trading: skill or luck? 03:17 Brand building: skill or luck? 04:58 Talent vs hard work 05:59 Surviving the periods with no progress 07:51 Chase the narrative or stick to your guns 09:17 Is the world becoming more PvP? 13:25 What leverage actually means 17:44 The rat race, redefined 20:15 What actually drives us 22:46 Traders are the new celebrities 25:50 The dangers of FOMO 28:27 The one skill that made us successful 31:16 Real relationships in a transactional industry 32:45 Will AI replace human content? 33:25 Do brands still need founders with personal brands? 36:29 Rebuilding from zero in 12 months 39:25 Breaking through on a hot narrative 40:47 Your friends aren't obliged to support you 43:25 The solo years 46:12 Belief, mentors, and the right people 48:58 What's next?

When I interviewed this guy less than 2 months ago he was at $158,000 per month. Now @wickedguro almost at $200k per month 🔥 So awesome to watch.

A minute animation video of @bricktopians works Enjoy 🍿

Favourite application I've seen of this so far:

Goated list 🐐

As a kid, I always wished Pokémon battles in the games could play out like they do in the anime. So I built a real-time Pokémon battle experience with @fal H3 Max. choose a move, the game calculates the outcome, and AI generates the animation on the fly. Paralysis, fainting, and Pokémon is hurt are reflected on screen. Project:github.com/xflare-bot/pokemo…

Jake grew Cal AI to $50m ARR, And in this article he breaks down the fundamentals of what you need to know before scaling your app:

3 years of app building and scaling mistakes distilled down for you so you don't have to experience the same growing pains as I did aka everything I wish I could have handed younger Jake on day 1 of building Cal Ai

Alex AI series is my favorite content on the timeline. It inspires me to see vibe coders building empires having fun and cracking the code. This is a game I like, based on doing it, not relying only on pre-public information. I've built multiple communities, and make companies raise a ton of money, but unfortunately building communities in crypto is relegated to "community manager", aka kindergarten teacher. I'm vibe coding and having fun doing so, I will focus on this more and more, while not leaving aside my Community strategist skills, but rather starting to put into processes my learnings. 2027 will be so much fun, and we will make a ton of money. Bet on yourself now, start vibe coding, start relying on your mind and heart, in a mindless scrolling dead internet era it's a super power.

Super random late night post but so proud of my brother Sharbel for the content he's putting out on Youtube. This is the channel for anyone getting into AI or already in the eco and wants to stay up to date. Also, insane work on the thumbnails my brother @johnny_clock.

GPT-5.6 SOL with DeepSeek Harness is insane at creating voxel dioramas. it one shotted a playable voxel battlefield 👇 That includes: - trenches, craters, ruins, coastline and railway - 34 soldiers + 17 animated land, air and naval vehicles - destructible buildings, artillery and airstrikes - tactical radar, cinematic camera, night mode and audio every operation worked. zero runtime exceptions.

@dagorenouf took some inspiration from outbid.lol and turned his X profile with 120k+ followers into a money machine by letting companies take a sponsor slot in his bio 💸 super clever idea and it shows again: your audience is worth more than you think!

1 month. 1 game. Unlimited prizes. Introducing The Build Games. Sponsors, start bidding. Builders, get ready. thebuildgames.com