Just an update

What's up guys, how are you? It's been a long, long time, so I just decided I'd come on here, make another video. I've been wanting to make one for so long, for so long, but I've kept putting it off. And part of that is that I'm just procrastinating. Part of it is that I want to make a perfect video for you guys, or I want to have the perfect stuff to say. But to be honest, I want to get in the habit of just spitting up videos constantly. I actually just watched a Logan Paul vlog and it kind of made me think, like one of his old ones from 9 years ago, and maybe it could be cool to do like a month in my life where I'm just like making a vlog every single day. It would lowkey be a fun challenge and I think cool for you guys to see. But it's currently 12:40, 12:54 AM, nearly 1 AM on a Friday. Well, I guess it was Thursday, it's Friday, 1 AM. So like, I'm gonna go to bed and wake up and it's still gonna be Friday, January 23rd. So there's a lot to update you guys on. Let's just jump right into things because that's what this video is mostly gonna be, is an update on everything going on in my life and Kawaii and everything else I'm thinking about. And then yeah, maybe in future videos I'm gonna be doing more of like an activity and vlog it or something. I don't know. We got some Cali Eye merch delivered, so that's pretty cool. It's like an apple, holographic apple type thing. Looks like a diagram. And got the front too. We also have a different design where it's like a dino nugget. Um, oh, we do have that here. Oh shit, I almost just took out a light. It is Dino Nugget. It says, "Kalei'i phone eats first." That's kind of our motto because you take the picture of your food before you eat it, so your phone is eating first. Tell me if that's cringy or not. So let me know if you guys would want to buy some of these. Maybe we put up a website and sell some Kalei'i merch, or maybe I'll do a giveaway, just give it out to some of you guys. We're not trying to make revenue off of this, but Kalei'i is doing great. This has been our best month ever. It's not even done yet. And we're going to do close to $5 million in revenue this month, which is just crazy to think. We're not even 2 years old and we're going to finish close to, if not passing, $5 million in revenue this January. So wow, it's insane. A huge unlock for us has been paid ads. It was really influencers that took us to the first 2 million, and then past that, paid ads started to really carry. Like, it was kind of split between paid ads and influencers, 2 to 3 million, I'd say. And then now it's really mostly paid ads that's continuing to help us grow. And it's going really well. I've learned a ton about it. So yeah, definitely would not neglect paid ads in your business. Definitely a useful tool. It's really interesting to think about when I look at all of these different channels we have driving traffic to Cal AI. It just makes me think, wow, like any one of these channels could just completely be turned off and we still have a multi-million dollar business. So really, really cool that that's how something like this works, where you could just have diversified channels and it just strengthens your business. But to be honest, another realization I've had is that mobile apps don't really make— don't really go that far. Like, one of the biggest apps is Duolingo right now, and and it's making, I don't know, over $100 million a year, something like that. There are only a few apps making more than $100 million a year. There are ones that are massive that are making billions like Uber, DoorDash. I think DoorDash makes billions a year. Yeah, they definitely do. And a few others like the social media platforms. But in terms of subscription apps, they don't really go that far. And so I've kind of been thinking about, okay, what are the types of businesses that go really far, that can go really far. And some things, or a framework that I was kind of working on, is that the biggest TAM ideas or companies that can generate the most revenue are building products or companies around products that everyone uses. So for example, everyone uses a wallet. Everyone has a wallet to keep their money, or at least most people do. Most men do. And so Ridge Wallet saw the opportunity here to innovate on the wallet space and create a very durable wallet. And now their company is making definitely over $100 million a year. Let's see how much exactly they're making. I love playing this game of looking up a company's revenue. Ridge wallet revenue. Okay, so it just says over 100 million annually, uh, but that was 2023, so I would guess they're at maybe 300 million or more in yearly revenue. But honestly, hard to know. But Beds Beds, everyone has a bed. Eight Sleep makes sleeping better, more optimized, helps people stay asleep longer. And they're making $400 million a year, at least they did in 2025, I believe it was when I looked it up. This brand that made hoodies called Comfort, they scaled extremely fast. It's literally just sweatshirts. And they did an incredible job marketing them. The TAM was huge. and their marketing strategies were very novel. No one else was marketing with UGC videos on these paid ads platforms. And so they scaled to $600 million revenue in 2 years. Toothbrushes, companies like Oral-B, the toothbrush company, they're making billions of dollars a year. And then a company like HiSmile comes in where you just whiten your teeth. And let me actually check their revenue. HiSmile revenue. I haven't seen their ads in a while though, so that's interesting. Okay, it looks like it was around $300 million in 2023. So all of these guys, and I have a big list, it goes like, like I came up with a list of all the categories. I'm, I know I'm missing a ton, but wallets, beds, hoodies, toothbrushes, shampoo, shoes, deodorant, beverages, alcohol can go under beverages. Pets, um, phone accessories, cars. So like, I'll just go through some of these really quick. Cars— Tesla. Pets— a lot of people have pets, so selling real dog food, like higher quality dog food, has become a massive thing. Deodorant— Dr. Squatch has become a massive brand. There's a ton of these. And so I'm kind of thinking of what other places there are to innovate. Maybe one of these categories, there are some opportunities to innovate on them. Ideally, I would want to do something in tech. This is like if I were to start like a much larger type of business where I think the TAM is in the billions. So that's kind of a thought process. I definitely think Cali AI could be a billion-dollar company too, but I don't necessarily think it could be like a $100 billion company. On other news, I 2 months ago moved into a single bedroom apartment by myself, and it's been interesting living alone. In my kitchen here, it's like a small kitchen, and I have the chill living room, pretty nice couch. I'm actually really proud of that couch because I could have made the decision to get like a more boring basic one, and I took a little bit of a risk just ordering something I saw on an online listing, and it came out really good actually. And then this bookshelf I ordered— I have to put up those pictures. I got one of them for my birthday, so this Alexander Hamilton one: Men give me credit for genius. All the genius I know anything about is hard work. Great quote right there. And I got my desk set up too, where I'm just double, dual monitoring right now. And then of course the bed and bathroom. But yeah, it's been sometimes good, sometimes less good living alone compared to when I was in the house before, in the @mafia house. It was definitely a lot more hectic and exciting. I feel like it, like, pushed me to get out of bed and just be around the house more, knowing other people were around. But here I'm definitely getting more productive work done, maybe because I'm, like, more isolated, more inclined to just go on my computer and work. And to hop on calls. I guess it's also I'm just less distracted, less things are pulling me away. But yeah, Alex and Connor left Miami a couple months ago, but now they're actually back, so we might get a house again. And I'm actually— I think I would like that. So we're looking into some places right now. Yeah, I have so many goals. And at U Miami, at least, I'm like basically taking a gap semester right now. And I say basically because technically I'm like still a part-time student, but I'm essentially not really doing anything right now. And I think we're gonna see how it goes, but yeah, I've been questioning a lot on like what to do at this stage because I could decide to just stay here and just chill in Miami, work and hang out with friends. But I could also decide, okay, I want to go travel the world. And I think the one thing holding me back from doing that right now is just the fact that I know I have a community here, and I kind of feel like if I go travel the world for like a month or something, or longer, then I will fall out of touch with the community and maybe I'll come back, but I'll never really be as close. Even now, like, I feel like I don't have the strongest relationships with people there because it's only been like 6 months. So I have some good friendships that I've built, but I feel like, I mean, how tight can you really build relationships in 6— I guess pretty tight if you're seeing them like every day, but I'm not necessarily seeing these people every single day. Yeah, some of the people that I've been meeting are cool, but then they're not entrepreneurs, and so I kind of don't— I don't know if it's like a relationship that's gonna last, just because I don't know what would happen, like, if I moved out of Miami, for example. I don't know what— for what reasons I would necessarily keep in touch with with people, um, if like they're not at least in the space in some way. Yeah, my fridge has so many, so many expired things because I used to have the chef coming here, but I ultimately decided it's too claustrophobic. It's like a pretty small space. He's, he's in the kitchen just cooking up and I'm like working across the room and it's noisy. It was just a little bit annoying, so I'm happier with this. I just DoorDash pretty much everything. And yeah, it's been weird, weird few months, weird few months. Very fun though, a lot of good stuff going on, like a lot of learnings that I'm having. And I've been learning a ton business-wise recently. I don't know what it's been, but like the last 2 or 3 months, I feel like I've just had a lot of realizations about kind of what it really takes to build a company to at least a few hundred million a year in revenue. The big unlock I maybe haven't had yet was what it takes to build a company that is truly like generational, something that will turn into something as big as Facebook or Apple or OpenAI, Amazon, but maybe it's interesting because I know so many founders who are on the trajectory, who've like built companies to $100 million or are on the way to do it or far past it. But I don't think that those companies will turn into the bigger companies that are like brand names, household names. Multibillion-dollar companies that everyone knows, like $100 billion companies or close. And maybe that's just because I haven't seen it happen in my lifetime yet because it takes a lot of time, and so that's why I'm not pattern matching it. But I feel like there's some big difference between a company that's bound to be a $100 billion company and one that's in its first 2 years is doing like a few hundred million in revenue. I guess that's not necessarily true. Maybe where I'm thinking is mostly that these subscription apps and websites that I'm looking at, those probably won't go to these massive companies or become them. But then other companies, maybe like a vibe coding platform, they actually could go pretty far if they execute certain things right. So, okay, maybe just ignore that. Yeah, I don't really have much to say, so I guess I just stopped ranting. It's 1:09 now, so I should go to bed, but I just wanted to come on here to finally hold myself accountable. Give you guys an update and get in the habit of recording more. I'm gonna get out more videos. All right, see you guys soon.