From Coding At Age 7 To A $34M Idea

Starting 2025 off with 325% Year-Over-Year (YOY) business growth, Zach Yadegari, co-founder and CEO of Cal AI, perfectly embodies the mindset of young tech entrepreneurs around the Country.

Zach Yadegari comes from Long Island, New York and is currently enrolled at the University of Miami where he is studying business. At age 7 he exhibited his unique abilities after he convinced his patents to enroll him in a coding camp. He was originally drawn to coding because of his favorite games (Minecraft and Roblox) but quickly found a way not only to monetize his skills in coding, but fill a need in the process. In high school Yadegari created an unblocked website to consolidate simple video games for students who, due to COVID lockdowns, where studying at home on school issued, and therefore restricted and blocked, Chromebooks. This website, called Totally Science, was sold for $100,000 to an established game company called Freeze Nova in 2024. Yadegari was only 16 years old when he sold his game website.

His goals have always been to skip the unnecessary steps. He said in a recent interview that the usual track is to go to college, get a degree, get a job, and then make money. “Then I decided if I could skip all of those steps and just make money, then I wouldn’t be stressed anymore.” One thing he found to be a stress, and also the fuel for his new business venture, was the trouble of measuring calories through fitness apps, for his personal fitness goals. None of the apps served the customer well enough and this made the fitness experience unbearable for some. This ultimately led to the collaboration to create Cal AI.

With the dawn of AI, Yadegari figured he could find a way to use AI to do the work of calorie calculating that used to mean painstakingly weighing and then formulating how a certain meal would impact a fitness regimen. Now the same information can be calculated with a simple picture and a short assessment by Cal AI. With this company Yadegari and his co-founders are able to employ roughly 30 people and produce about $1.4M gross profit per month.

Of all his achievements, Zach Yadegari is, personally, most inspiring in the way that he pushed his ideas into reality while balancing life and his academic responsibilities (as proven by his 4.0 GPA). This use of time management and focus skills is an encouragement to those of us who struggle with the nameless minutes of each day and how we ought to use each of them. Yadegari obviously proved there is enough time to do the essentials and change the world at the same time.