Cal AI · B2C · photo calorie tracking app
Grow through fitness creators who sell coaching, so the app doesn't compete with them
Main growth driver; guaranteed views vs hoping to go viral
Workedinfluencerpositioning-niche
What they did
Cal AI's main growth is influencer marketing with fitness creators: there are very many, they are reasonably priced, and a calorie tracker doesn't conflict with the coaching they sell. Contrast with Sway, where dating coaches sell profile feedback themselves, and beauty creators, who are expensive because of makeup brand deals.
What happened
Primary growth channel for Cal AI; guest says influencers give guaranteed views and scale by stacking creators
- Stage
- scale
In their words
The Superwall Podcast · Daniel Heintzma - I speedran a new app from 0 to $2m/year in 6 months (here's how)“for Cal AI, it's a calorie tracking app where you're like tracking your your meals, whereas what they're selling as a product themselves is the fitness coaching. And so, it doesn't conflict, right, with our app.”
“With Cal AI, there's just so many fitness influencers, and they're also like not super They're like reasonably priced”
“The key with influencers is you have guaranteed views, as opposed to doing UGC, you're hoping and praying that you get a month where you go viral.”
Related topics
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New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
More from Cal AI
All 84 Cal AI tactics- Pay $350-450 for four posts plus view bonuses that stop at 1M viewsKeeps the upside of viral hits; founder gives no numbers
- Price a creator on the average of their 5 worst of 20 recent videosMost deal videos land nearer the mean, so the rest is profit
- Agree with a creator's view boast, then guarantee 700-800K views when they claim 1MGuaranteed a profitable CPM on every deal; creators couldn't back down
- Have 25 hired assistants each email 100 creators a day~220K creators contacted, 2-3K signed; roughly 1 signed per 1,000 emailed
- Pay creators $100-200 when a friend they refer signs a dealReally helped; got direct numbers and deals around talent agents
- Ask creators to cross-post on both platforms as a casual, no-big-deal extraCreators accept most of the time; founder's claim, no numbers
More from this episode
- Sway AI: Grow an Instagram account on Hinge prompt tips before building, with a preorder linkSome videos took off within weeks; audience existed before launch
- Sway AI: Charge followers $15 by DM for a manual profile review before buildingPeople paid before any app existed; proved willingness to pay
- Sway AI: Copy the text of a men's self-improvement account's most viral slideshows into your own designsSlideshows averaged 10-50K views; one hit 600K
- Sway AI: Make a month of TikTok slideshows in 1-2 hours from a spreadsheet and templateSeconds per slideshow; a month of posts in an hour or two
- Sway AI: Post unbranded slideshows until views come, then brand every slide with the appOne branded Christmas Day post got ~4M views and $5-6K revenue in a day
- Sway AI: Have one dating influencer make promo videos, then run them as ads from his pageTook revenue from $30-40K/month to about $2M a year; creative supply became the limit
- Sway AI: Open onboarding with short videos explaining the app before asking any questionsAdded after emails asking what the app does; no numbers given
- Sway AI: Ask for profile screenshots after the paywall, not before itSimple onboarding before the paywall performed a lot better; no numbers
- Sway AI: Sell extra analysis credits to people who rerun the profile checkAbout 11% of revenue
- Sway AI: Sell AI photo packs at $14.99 for one and $49.99 for tenBiggest upsell in the app; no spending cap lets big spenders pay more
- Sway AI: Preselect the yearly plan on the paywall to collect cash upfrontWeekly plan also tried; grew a lot slower
- Cal AI: Redesign the meal logging screens so people keep paying after the 3-day trial
- Cal AI: Let users join friend groups and topic groups with streak leaderboards
- Cal AI: Add daily logging streaks, copied from Duolingo
- Cal AI: Let users post progress photos, meals and streak badges to Instagram storiesA lot of users share progress and meals; no numbers
- Cal AI: Make the 3 screens creators film (camera, loading, food detail) instantly clear
- Cal AI: Ramp up paid ads once influencer growth is workingMarked Cal AI's big growth inflection point; no numbers
- Robinhood: Launch in a month with game-like branding unlike bank-style crypto appsWent really viral; idea to launch in about a month