Blake Anderson
Co-Founder, Apex. On 2 shows, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderengineer@blakeandersonw ↗LinkedIn ↗
Blake Anderson is a software entrepreneur who taught himself to code using ChatGPT and created several viral consumer AI applications, notably Plug AI, Umax, and Cal AI. His bootstrapped apps have reached tens of millions of dollars in annual run-rate revenue largely driven by organic TikTok marketing.
2shows
2appearances
41statements
1resolved
1supported
0contradicted
100%fully supported
4said about them ↓ Everything Blake Anderson said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Anderson: AI backend compute costs are under 3% for most mobile apps
“Unless you're doing image generation or using advanced voice mode, AI costs are sub three percent.”
Founders should accept lower LTV to maximize total user volume
“I believe that you should optimize for like number of users raised to the N where N is greater than one multiplied by profit per user. I will take at least at a just pure conversion basis. I will accept a lower LTV on a per download basis in exchange for more …”
MyFitnessPal engineers lack equity incentives and care less about the product
“The engineers at my fitness pal, like my fitness pal to begin with has been like traded back and forth, sold so many times that the people that are doing the groundwork don't like, probably don't have that much equity, you know? And so the engineers don't care…”
Anderson: TikTok and Instagram distribution are solvable for driving massive traffic
“TikTok and Instagram are very solvable right now. You can figure out the various influencer strategies, the user generated content strategies, organic account growth strategies to funnel millions of people to your products.”
Anderson: Social media algorithms push more views to new accounts
“And I don't think that the algorithms were as optimized for new accounts to be able to generate millions of views a few years ago. But now that they're all in bloodbath competition with one another, They have to incentivize new creators. And so they'll push mo…”
Anderson: $100 creator promo drove 500,000 Rizz GPT downloads in one month
“I pay them each 50 dollars for a promo. So 100 dollars total and overnight five, ten million views total. 45,000 downloads in that first big day. 200,000 downloads on that week. 500,000 downloads on the month.”
Anderson: Physical product niches signal high-converting opportunities for new software apps
“When you find a niche that's heavily monetized with physical products, that's a good indicator that the niche converts. It's also a good indicator that You can probably build a software or application to solve a problem within it.”
Anderson: Millions remain on the table for an all-in-one AI glow-up app
“I think that there's still a lot of room for like an all-in-one AI glow up application. Umaxx was kind of like the first iteration, but if someone were to put real time investment into building a super valuable application here, that really helps people improv…”
Anderson: Internal UGC yields 50-80% profit margins versus 0-30% for paid ads
“One of the reasons that internal UGC is great is that you usually see somewhere around like 50 to 80% profit margins. People doing influencer marketing, you usually see somewhere in the range of like 25 to 70%. And then people doing paid ads, you generally see…”
An all-in-one career AI tool could easily charge $50 monthly
“Now I think that a career AI, you charge 50 bucks a month for an all-in-one tool to me feels pretty obvious.”
Using influencer databases and marketing agencies is an ineffective strategy
“Number one, I don't use influencer marketplaces or databases. Number two, I think that there's a lot of messaging on the internet about various tools. So like marketplace and databases or agencies to find influencers for you. That's just like outright wrong. W…”
Appending 'AI' to product names works best in stagnant industries
“Appending AI is valuable when you are creating innovation within a relatively stagnant industry, such as Cal AI.”
Anderson recommends Superwall over RevenueCat for mobile app paywalls
“I think that pretty much everybody should be using Superwall. I don't use revenue cap. I only use Superwall.”
Placing paywalls at the end of onboarding outperforms all other strategies
“The most standard practice in the industry right now is to take people through some onboarding flow and then hit them with a paywall at the end. It's just like, you make so much more doing that than pretty much any other paywall strategy.”
Duolingo's dominance discourages competition, creating opportunities for new AI apps
“For the same reason that Duolingo is so big, there's so, so few people trying, which just makes it so much easier to succeed when applying these sort of new wave tactics.”
Anderson: CalAI generates over $1M in monthly revenue six months post-launch
“CalAI was launched about six months ago and is now doing over a million dollars in revenue per month.”
Anderson: Bundling fragmented AI career tools is a massive opportunity
“I think that there's massive opportunity to build a career AI style platform Where you roll up all these tools into one platform and brand it as like, if you're a student and you want to get a job, this is the platform to help you do so.”
Anderson: Product validation requires algorithmically immersing in target social media niches
“My validation process primarily looks like a deep dive into the niche on social media. So what I'll do is I'll create an account, say Cal AI, and then purely consume nutrition and dieting and calorie counting, weightlifting content. Essentially becoming the ta…”
Anderson: Founders must learn Figma even if not designing the app themselves
“Even if you yourself don't intend to be a designer, you need to be able to work in Figma to work with designers, whether you hire them off Upwork or work with someone internally.”
Anderson: Build mobile apps from scratch with React Native, Expo, and Cursor
“Number two, when it comes to building, what I would recommend is that you build in React Native with the Expo framework using cursor as your IDE.”
Anderson: Direct messaging creators' mothers secured promotional app partnerships
“There were guys that I was DMing their mom saying, Hey, get me in contact with your son. I want to pay him money.”
Anderson: Paywall split testing can boost revenue per user by 2x
“Being able to test these different offerings and different placements within the app can take you from making X dollars per user that downloads to 1.5 or two X.”
Anderson: Apple's effective App Store cut is 20% under $1M, 33% beyond
“Apple charges 15%, but for whatever reason, it's really closer to 20% of revenue, up to your first million dollars in earnings. Beyond that, Apple charges 30, but really closer to like 33%”
The other half of the tape: Blake Anderson's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 3 times in 2 episodes across the shows. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Joseph Choi 2Hunter Isaacson 1
Statements about Blake Anderson, by other people (1)
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
the Startup Ideas Podcast 3
2025 1 mention in 1 episode
2024 2 mentions in 1 episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Blake's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 STARTER STORYLEDGER | Co-Founder, Apex | 1 | 22 | 100% 1/1 | full record on Starter Story → |
| STARTUP IDEASLEDGER | Co-Founder, Apex | 1 | 19 | — | full record on the Startup Ideas Podcast → |