How Cal AI scaled to $2m/mo <12months

Weekly Letter

2025 B2B Influencer Marketing Trends(5)

The team at LimelightHQ - a B2B2 creator platform- is again with a new report. As I have written in the past, B2B influencer marketing is on the rise, and tech companies like Notion, Clay, ActiveCampaign, Wix & more are investing heavily in this distribution channel,

This week David Walsh and the team put together a report on 5 trends in B2B influencer marketing and here are my summaries.

Shift in buyer behavior - Since buyers have become more aware of paid ads and outbound tactics, executing demand capture in partnership with creators in the best bet as of 2025. In fact, 83% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free sales experience, relying on digital content, peer recommendations, and expert insights to guide purchases.

LinkedIn has become the go-to for B2B social selling - With the launch of LinkedIn Thought Leader ads, it’s evident, that LinkedIn is no longer just a networking platform. Executives-tuned creators are reshaping demand generation on LinkedIn by embedding their brand messages within authentic, creator-driven narratives that buyers trust.

The playbook to run B2B influencer marketing campaigns

Leveraging AI in optimizing campaigns - David, the CEO of Limelight confesses; having 100s of executives that running influencer marketing campaigns is marred with challenges like unstructured communications, time-consuming research processes, and more. However, leveraging AI can help us move faster, make smarter decisions, and optimize influencer partnerships with ease.

Expert Webinar

How to prioritize consistent experimentation

Canberk Beker, a LinkedIn ads expert and the founder of ROASted was recently hosted on a Stacking Growth episode by Refine Labs. Here is the summary from the 28 minutes episode;

Prioritize quality over quantity in content creation, focusing on developing one well-thought-out campaign per month or quarter to enhance brand authenticity and audience connection.

Embrace the philosophy of asking for forgiveness rather than permission when pushing boundaries and trying new marketing approaches, leading to better results and significant breakthroughs.

Embrace an experimental mindset in B2B marketing by shifting the focus from achieving targets and increasing budgets to fostering growth and innovation through strategic risk-taking.

A month ago Canberk Beker shared an experimentation analysis on a LinkedIn post worth checking out. Here is the summary;

Question: Which retargeting audience converts better?

Hypothesis: We should see higher meeting booked numbers when targeting website visitors compared to people engaging with ads or watching videos on Linkedin.

Dates: Nov 10 – Dec 19
Budget: $35K

Proven Framework

How Cal AI scaled to $24m ARR under 12 months

I came across a thread on X from this profile - Siro on the insane growth of Cal AI - an app that simplifies calorie tracking scaled to $2m/month in under one year. Here is my breakdown from the 24 threads;

The User Experience (UX) design of the product evokes high activation through three in-built ways: clean user interface, clear-to-action and instant value proposition.

Baking-in psychology triggers into the product

Instead of pitching the product, Cal AI tells users; to lose 2x weight vs doing it alone and tracking & accountability make a difference.

How Cal AI acquired users without ads;

• Personal promo codes that were shared instantly

• $5 per friend referral program

• Social motivation push; ‘lose weight together ‘

Cal AI’s influencer marketing playbook

Lessons from Nikita Bier on advising 50+ consumer companies

The excerpt from X:

After advising 50+ consumer companies over the last year, the one thing that separates those who can execute and those who can't:

Having a full-time designer in the room at all times

I've met with countless companies that have raised millions—and even one that has raised billions—that do not even have a designer on the payroll. This makes product development broken:

1/ You simply cannot have constructive conversations about ideas without visualizing them in real-time

2/ Your experiments will frequently have inconclusive results because users cannot discover features or they misunderstand how they work

3/ There is no one who can galvanize the team with a vision of what the product could look and feel like

And to be abundantly clear: I'm not referring to visual UI or graphics. I'm talking about someone who can think through the fundamental building blocks of product comprehension—like navigation, interaction, and copywriting—and is technically savvy enough to visualize those components in high-resolution

Paid Social

Reddit ads experimentation

B2B Creatives

GIF B2B ad creative collections

Letter Examples

How to choose the right target market for the ABM pilot

AI UGC ad scripting process

That is all for this week.

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Let’s connect via LinkedIn - Okerosi