I built a $50M AI app in high school (and just sold it for...)
3/5/20261 hr 10 min
Free course: Build a profitable AI side hustle in 7 days https://clickhubspot.com/dki Episode 802: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) talk to 19-year-old Zach Yadegari ( https://x.com/zach_yadegari ) about selling his $50M/yr app to MyFitnessPal. — Show Notes: (0:00) How much? (1:57) getting rejected from Stanford (5:45) 60-second origin story (7:27) "your biggest skill is your audacity" (12:50) the truth about selling a company (23:24) dos and don'ts (27:04) Zach's douchebag arc (29:44) first dumb purchase (33:08) decisions that made the app worth $100M (43:51) Idea 1: Semantic search on IG (45:10) Idea: apps (48:00) filter for good ideas (54:27) Dinner w/ Steve Cohen (1:03:39) Where Zach is putting his money (1:05:58) What Zach sucks at — Links: • Cal AI - https://www.calai.app/ • MyFitnessPal - https://www.myfitnesspal.com/ — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com • Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents. • Mercury - Need a bank for your company? Go check out Mercury (mercury.com). Shaan uses it for all of his companies! Mercury is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC • I run all my newsletters on Beehiiv and you should too + we're giving away $10k to our favorite newsletter, check it out: beehiiv.com/mfm-challenge — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth • Sam’s List - http://samslist.co/ My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano /
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsShaan Puri· Host0:00
Zach, we gotta set the table. Zach, how old are you?
Zach Yadegari· Guest0:03
I'm 19.
Shaan Puri· Host0:04
And you just sold your company. You just sold your company for how much money, Zach?
Zach Yadegari· Guest0:07
[laughs] Yeah.
Speaker 20:08
I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. Uh. I put my all in it like no days off. On the road less traveled, never looking back.
Shaan Puri· Host0:17
All right, what's up? Zach, you're here, 19 years old. The last time you called into this podcast, you were in high school. You, I think [laughs], were, like, between third and fourth period or on lunch break. And you did a podcast recording with us in front of, I don't know, a quarter million people or something like that. And now we fast-forward, I don't know, a year and change later, and you just sold your company. You just sold your company for how much money, Zach?
Zach Yadegari· Guest0:40
[laughs] I can't reveal how much we sold for, unfortunately, but I can tell you that right before selling, we finished 2025 having done $30 million in revenue, and now the company's grown. Um, in January, we just did 5.7 million in revenue.
Shaan Puri· Host0:56
[laughs] 5.7 mil in January, so if you, if you were to multiply by 12 and say, like, what we could do this year, you're talking about, like, a f- you know, 50 million-plus, uh, revenue company. But 30 million last year. Dude, that's amazing. Like, you know, just the way you say it, you say it so, um, calmly and like a grown-up, but, like, can we just take a second, Sam, just to be amazed and just give the kid some, some props? Like, that is incredible. You're a teenager who built an app with your friends, got it to 30 million in, in annual revenue, and, um, sold