I make tech brands go viral on X: https://xitter.cf/t.co/lHXzhiRAhT YouTube on AI Businesses: https://xitter.cf/t.co/pLZyltEB0j Also built @bricktopians 🧱
Joined January 2022
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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 $9.50 in his bank account to 8-figures in revenue
7:30 The influencer playbook that made Cal AI grow
13:05 The right apps for Cal AI's strategy
17:32 How Jake evaluates influencers
22:16 How to DM influencers for your app
28:15 The simple hack that gets influencers interested
35:01 What it actually took to grow Cal AI
40:57 What it will take for you to grow your app
47:08 Final thoughts before you take the leap
He's back!
This guy helped guide 200k people to make their first money online.
And I wanted to know, what effects your chances at success?
And what can you do to increase your odds?
If you haven't seen @farhaj before:
• He was on the founding team at Buildspace, backed by Y Combinator and a16z
• Almost 15,000 companies were born from it
• Now he's building Forma, creating the communities where the next unicorns will be born
In this conversation he breaks down:
0:44 Why the UK is undervalued
7:26 What founders leaving the UK are missing
16:10 Could Solana fix London's stock market?
23:02 Does where you're born still matter?
35:00 Why online communities can be worth trillions
39:24 Finding purpose when AI changes work
44:03 Is starting a company safer than a job now?
51:18 How artists can make a living online
55:15 What separates good founders from great ones
🇦🇺 Alex is Building retweeted
with 20$ a month, you can build self-run apps.
not there yet personally, but once I've watched all @AlexIsBuilding videos with AI builders, I've started my journey towards that goal.
I didn't vibe code much during the summer, thinking it was a bit too expensive (claude & gpt code would often run out of credits at the beginning of the year).
but now, I'm consistently back on track with it, and built so many useful stuff for 2a1c and La Sobremesa, with my spare time fully focused on my own apps.
Dissecta will definitely be my first released app (I'm still working on it, I need the MVP to be where I want it to be and we are close.
Grainwave is my first ever vibe coded visual OS, which I love and defined my branding lately. I love it, but it's scalable only at cost being built on top of Grok Imagine.
I'm having fun, I'm building stuff I like and all of this for 20 dollars a month. The moment these start compounding, I'll go for higher plans, but so far so good.
Someone had to do this. I bought my pocket and immediately stopped using it.
Also one feature request, if you can get it to sync without going to the app manually (which currently completely kills the experience) that would be massive.
Roman knew his business would make money before he wrote a single line of code.
His playbook:
1. Start a service
2. Do it manually
3. Get as many clients as you can until you can't take any more
4. THEN turn it into a product
This guy took his AI startup to $4,000,000 in yearly revenue,
And he knew it would succeed before his team wrote a single line of code.
So I wanted to know how he did it (and how he grew so quickly).
In this episode @romanbuildsaas breaks down:
> How he validated gojiberry.ai so that he knew he could get customers
> The reddit strategy that took them from $10k MRR to $25k MRR
> And whether it's worth getting into @ycombinator.
Chapters:
00:26 Validating the product before writing any code
03:05 The Reddit strategy that took them from $10K to $25K MRR
07:56 Growing through X articles and product demos
11:15 Their biggest growth channel: LinkedIn influencers
12:43 Creating lead magnets people actually want
14:04 Cold outreach strategy
15:43 Why people ignore your outreach messages
17:50 Finding and closing bigger customers
19:25 When to hire a sales team
21:16 How Y Combinator changed their ambitions
23:16 How to grow beyond $20K–$40K MRR