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

This founder is making $158,000 per month from his vibe coded app. Today I'm speaking with @wickedguro, The solo founder who used one simple idea To create an app that's now doing almost $2m per year. Chapters: 0:00 The $158K/month app (Postiz) 0:54 Standing out in a crowded market 9:23 What customers love most about the app 16:58 Hacking GitHub's trending feed 23:43 Going from open source to paying customers 27:42 Using existing communities to grow MRR 36:11 The Reddit playbook 40:17 Growth hacking X using influencers 48:24 The next big growth hack 56:39 App ideas you can steal

AI Business Ideas (Day 2): How @kelanoo started a $20,000 per month AI automation agency. In this episode we cover: · Which clients you should target · How it leads to ongoing revenue · New businesses that come out of the work

Do you know ball? Introducing the R3ACH World Cup Bracket: ctball.netlify.app Pick your winners & earn points for you ball knowledge.

AI Business Ideas (Day 1): $1,000 per call with clients for auditing where they can use AI. Why this business is awesome: · Every business needs this right now · You don't need any skill with automations · Very clear pathway to upsells & recurring revenue Learnt this from @coreyganim who is crushing it at this model.

New daily series I'm starting (Day 0): AI Business Ideas from founders who are actually making money with AI. · No slop · Real founders making money · How they're getting customers & their business model First business breakdown dropping tomorrow. Going to be a combination of my research + interviews. (Running for 30 days, then I'll review & see if we should keep cooking) If we haven't met yet, hey I'm Alex 👋 Quick context for this series: · I run an influencer marking agency on X · We did $1.5m in revenue in the past year · I'm obsessed with learning about businesses, and I wanted to share all the learnings I've been taking down in private so you can win from them as well. Hope you enjoy friends ❤️

Here’s my backstory on how we took Stan Store to $30m ARR: When my co-founder and I started Stan, it was just the immigrant grind for years with lots of frugality and sheer hustle. There was even a time when we returned an IKEA table after using it in an Airbnb for some time, asking ourselves: "Are we building something that looks like a startup? Or something that actually helps people make a living?" And that question drove everything that followed. Early on in our journey to $30M ARR, we made a decision most advisors disagreed with. - No transaction fees to use Stan - Flat subscription, no upsells - $29/month price. People told us we were leaving millions on the table by not charging a transaction fee. Like every single one of our competitors did. And guess what? They were right. We left the money there on purpose. Because we realized that the moment you take a cut, you’re no longer on the Creator’s side. You’re just the middleman. We wanted Creators to win more because they used Stan. Not win less because we skimmed the top. Trust compounds faster than revenue. That turned out to be true. As growth picked up, so did the pressure. “Hire faster”, “Build a big team”, “Spend to show momentum.” We ignored all of this. Instead, we asked one question over and over: "What breaks if we don’t hire?" Most of the time, the answer wasn’t “people” … but systems. So we instead, we automated and simplified as much as we could. Deleting features. Building self-serve tools. Then, and only then, we hired people. Today, Stan serves 80,000+ Creators: They make $200M+ per year using the platform. Three years into building, we celebrated: ~$30M ARR. ~30 people. ~7 engineers. And a relentless focus on: – trust – speed – product – and not doing work that doesn’t need to exist So when I see posts that talk about Stan as the “fastest-growing startup I’ve seen”… I get it. But the real story that needs to be told is not the one about speed. It’s the one about restraint. We said no more than we said yes and we didn’t optimize for looking successful. What we optimized for was being helpful and creating fundamental value for our customers. We like to say that we didn't build Stan alone. The Creators built it with us. One at a time. Over the years. And that, out of any ARR, MRR or GMV… That’s the only leaderboard that actually matters.