# A Saudi comedy creator who never shows his face turned his weight-loss series into an app ad: Arabic AI calorie counter Zubdah

> Source: https://stringers.io/en/apps/play_com.m7mdiyat.zubdah.html (Stringers / 什么值得做, generated 2026-11-08)
> Stringers answers one question every day: what small product can one or two people build in a few months and actually make money from. Numbers come from 15 databases we collect daily, each with source and date.
> For agents: these verdicts and the underlying databases (verified revenue, App Store / Google Play charts, ad libraries, GitHub, Product Hunt…) are queryable live over MCP — tools today / hot / products / directions / direction / data. Setup: https://github.com/komako-workshop/stringers (the user logs in at stringers.io → "配置 agent" to get a personal URL). Site index: https://stringers.io/llms.txt

> The developer is almost certainly Saudi top influencer Encise himself. He treats the app as a prop in his own weight-loss series, and funnels viewers in through his TikTok profile, discount codes and near-daily short videos on the official account.

[Mobile App](https://stringers.io/en/apps/index.md) · Android + iOS · written 11-6

Zubdah (زبدة) · M7MDIYAT

# A Saudi comedy creator who never shows his face turned his weight-loss series into an app ad: Arabic AI calorie counter Zubdah

**What it is** An AI photo calorie counter app in Arabic (Saudi dialect). It recognizes Arabic dishes like kabsa and mandi, and can save recipes from short-video links.

**Why it took off** The developer is almost certainly Saudi top creator Encise himself. He uses the app as a prop in his own weight-loss series, then funnels viewers to it through his TikTok profile, discount codes, and daily short videos from the official account.

**C** **How you could follow** Don't copy an Arabic calorie app. Find a language Cal AI hasn't done properly, tie it to a local fitness or cooking creator, and make the app a prop in their series.

C grade: the traffic came from the celebrity himself, which followers can't get. The Arabic slot is already contested by DietAI, Rashaqa, and others. The playbook (creator-owned app, plot placement, branded search, limited discount codes) is worth learning, but copying the app directly isn't worth it. Still under the radar

Data (updated daily) · launched 2026-07-27 · 11-07 installs 70,419 · launched 2026-08-12 · Saudi rating 311 · charted in 11-08 13 stores

Android · Total installs worldwide

Data 2026-10-29 → 2026-11-07 (10 days, 10 observations). Google's detail page only refreshes install counts every other day, so a flat day doesn't mean nobody installed.

Android · Ratings count (cumulative)

Data 2026-10-29 → 2026-11-07 (10 days, 10 observations)

iOS · best category chart rank · by store

YE JO Oman

Data 2026-10-28 → 2026-11-08 (12 days, 12 observations). Lower rank is higher; gaps mean it wasn't charted that day

iOS · rating count · Saudi Arabia

Data 2026-10-28 → 2026-11-08 (12 days, 12 observations). Apple doesn't publish download counts; rating growth is a proxy for downloads.

Saudi comedy creator Encise has 4.88M YouTube subscribers and never shows his face. This summer he started a "weight-loss transformation" series. The Aug 16 episode is about eating, and its description links to an app called Zubdah (زبدة, "butter"), a photo calorie counter. Three months later it has 70k installs on Google Play and is growing by over 10,000 a week. The app is a Cal AI clone, rebuilt in Arabic and built to recognize Arab dishes. This piece covers how it took off, why you probably can't copy it, and what's worth learning from it.

### The Aug 16 episode

On May 8, 2026, Encise posted "رحلة التحول إلى غيوتارو | الحلقة الاولى" (Transforming into Gyutaro · Episode 1) on YouTube, 950k views. It's a real weight-loss series, with a masked coach, "الوحش المقنع" (the Masked Beast), appearing on camera as he documents, episode by episode, how he trains and eats.

In Aug 16, the episode on diet and nutrition, "رحلة التحول إلى غيوتارو | الأكل والتغذية", went up and got 885k views. The first line of the description reads "Zubdah's iPhone version: ...", and the next line is the Android link. Zubdah's iOS version had just launched four days earlier. This episode is about how to eat when losing weight, so counting calories is already part of the story and the app doesn't have to be forced in.

In Sep 23 he posted "إذا فزت علي.. تشوف وجهي" (If you beat me, you get to see my face). It got 596k views. The description reads "Zubdah for Android and iPhone: zubdah.ai/download, discount code ENC, valid two weeks after the video is published."

By Nov 6, Zubdah had 70,419 global installs on Google Play, with 7 new installs in the last 12,067 days (Google Play, 11-06). It ranked #37 in the Saudi Health & Fitness free chart.

### What it is

A photo calorie-tracking app. The one-line pitch on the homepage is in Saudi dialect: "صوّر صحنك، وخلّ زبدة تحسب السعرات" (Snap your plate, let Zubdah count the calories).

- **Photo calorie and macro counting** : snap a photo, it identifies ingredients and portions, you can edit them, and the numbers update;

- **Save recipes from short videos** : paste a TikTok, Reels, or YouTube link, or even a screenshot, and it pulls out ingredients, steps, and calories per serving;

- **Track weight and goals** : fat loss, maintenance, or gain, with a daily calorie budget.

The pitch it most wants you to remember is in the "Why Zubdah" section of the site: "Most calorie apps are built on foreign food databases, so you end up looking for something that's 'closest' to the kabsa, kabsa, or mansaf on your plate." The site also publishes an "Arab dish calorie table" that it says was measured from 55,803 real logs in the app. It counts the portion people actually eat, not every 100 grams: one plate of kabsa rice is 392 kcal, one Tamees bread is 413 kcal, one chicken shawarma is 320 kcal (zubdah.ai, 11-06).

Pricing is simple: the free plan allows 1 photo scans per day, 1 saved recipes, and 1 manual entries. Pro gives 10 of each per day, plus better models, for $5.99 a month or $39.99 a year (the annual plan has a 3-day trial) (zubdah.ai/pricing, 11-06).

### Who's behind it

The Play developer is M7MDIYAT, an LLC registered in New Mexico, USA, with the contact email mohammed@…. "محمديات" roughly means "Mohammed's things." They also run an AI Quran tafsir app. The same-named YouTube channel @m7mdiyat has 989k subscribers, and its video titles use bits like "accidentally showed my face," which matches Encise's persona.

Connecting the dots: Encise's TikTok (1.81M followers) bio reads "Search 'زبدة' in the store! 🧈 or download from here 👇", linking to zubdah.ai/download. His cooking alt account, "الشيف محمد" (Chef Mohammed, 93.5k followers), has the identical bio (TikTok, 11-06). The main account's bio has carried an app link for a long time. It doesn't look like a one-off ad deal. It looks more like his own product, or that he's a major shareholder. **The equity arrangement is unverified** , and he hasn't said it publicly.

### Where users come from

Almost all of it comes from Encise's own traffic, in three layers:

| Channel | Approach | Volume (source, date) |
|---|---|---|
| YouTube series | The app is a prop in the weight-loss series, with the download link in the description. The 9-23 video adds the discount code ENC, valid for two weeks. | 885k and 596k views (YouTube, 11-06) |
| Pinned on profile | TikTok bios on the main and cooking alt accounts both say "search زبدة in the store" | 1.81M + 93.5k followers (TikTok, 11-06) |
| Daily posts from the official account | @zubdah.ai opened 10-05, posting almost every day with the fixed phrasing "Your food is why you're gaining weight !! 👆" | 14.5k followers in one month; top video 1.75M views (10-10), the 11-02 one got 380k |

The official account's videos are worth a look. Every title uses the same template with one word swapped: "Drinks are why you're gaining weight !! 👆", "Desserts are why you're gaining weight !! 👆", "Watch out for high-calorie foods !! 👆". The tags are always #سعرات #وجبات (calories, meals). It costs almost nothing to make.

Two details stand out. First, fans are told to "search the name in the store" rather than click a link, so every download counts as branded store search. Second, discount codes last only two weeks, which compresses a video's traffic into a short window for subscriptions and also shows how many sales each video drove.

The install curve also spikes in bursts: there are clear jumps around Sep 20, mid-October, and around Oct 21, with only a few hundred installs a day in between (Google Play installs, third-party estimates). The timing roughly lines up with big-creator videos and official-account hits (inference, no attribution data). I found no evidence of paid acquisition, but public ad libraries don't fully cover the Middle East, so this is unverified.

Some organic recommendations from ordinary users exist, but on a small scale. On TikTok, someone posted "the best calorie counter app," getting tens of thousands of views.

### What the people who stayed say

On Play, the app holds 4.4–4.5 stars from about 890 ratings (11-06). The most endorsed Arabic review (19 people found it helpful, Sep 17) says: "Historically good, subscription price is reasonable, the only issue is too few free scans per day." The same reviewer adds, "An app like this can't only have 10k downloads." Another says it "has features no other paid app has, and you can use it without subscribing." Negative reviews focus on the subscription being expensive and recipe features sitting behind the paywall.

So the product can hold the traffic: it recognizes Arab dishes accurately, the colloquial copy feels familiar, and saving recipes from short videos fits how people in the Middle East scroll through cooking content. But it isn't why the app took off.

### Who it's competing with

This category is far from empty.

| Competitors | Scale (Google Play worldwide installs, 11-06) | How Zubdah differs |
|---|---|---|
| Cal AI | 4.57M | The benchmark for photo calorie tracking, English-first, built on a US creator network |
| AI Calorie Counter・DietAI | 4.64M, 7 days +77k | An Arabic localization done well, an international tool that relies on paid acquisition with no local celebrity |
| رشاقة Rashaqa | 8.27M, ranked #7 in Saudi health | An established Arabic app: step counting plus manual database lookup, no AI photo recognition |
| MyFitnessPal / Yazio / FatSecret | Tens of millions to hundreds of millions | Western food database, can't find kabsa |
| Zadi, Thaya, Captain Cal | Not verified | Also doing "Gulf food calories," but without a large creator distributing it |
| ChatGPT / Gemini photo questions | — | Free, but no logging or goals |

Also Arabic-localized, DietAI added more than six times as many new installs per week as Zubdah, driven by paid acquisition. Zubdah's position isn't "the only one that understands Arab dishes." It's "the only one personally used by a local creator with 5M followers."

### If it were you

**In one line** : you can't copy this app, but you can learn from its playbook. Zubdah took off because of Encise himself, which followers can't replicate. The product is Cal AI with local cuisine, and the Arabic slot is already contested by DietAI, Rashaqa, and a crowd of smaller sites.

**Who it's for** : creators who already run a fitness, weight-loss, or cooking channel in a given language, or developers who can do an equity deal with one. Don't build another calorie-counter app. Build the app that this creator is already using.

**Who it's not for** : anyone without a content channel who is relying on organic store traffic or SEO; anyone who wants to go head-to-head with Zubdah and DietAI in Arabic; anyone unwilling to do subscriptions (the money in this category is in subscriptions).

**How to build it** : pick a language and cuisine that Cal AI hasn't seriously worked on (Turkish, Indonesian, Hindi, Vietnamese, for example; check the store charts yourself to see how crowded each one is), find the creator first, then build the product. Model the product on Zubdah: photo recognition for local dishes, portions based on real serving sizes, saved short-video recipes, 1 free scans a day, monthly plus annual plans with a trial. Use real logs to build a local-dish calorie table and publish it on your website to capture long-tail search.

**How to acquire users** : get the creator to write the app into a running weight-loss / muscle-gain / cooking series as a prop, rather than just a shout-out in a voiceover. Put "search the brand name in the store" in the bio. Give every sponsored video its own discount code, valid for two weeks. On the official account, post an educational short every day using a fixed format ("X is why you're gaining weight").

**When to launch** : the biggest traffic peak for weight-loss apps each year is January. To catch the 2027 New Year wave, you need to be live by mid-December, and the creator's first episode has to air in early January.

**Signs you're reading this wrong** : (1) After Encise stops posting the series, Zubdah's weekly new installs fall below a few thousand and it drops out of the top 100 in the Saudi health chart. That would show the creator-driven traffic doesn't stick, and the ceiling for this playbook is lower than it looks. (2) Conversely, if it keeps adding more than 10K a week without new big-creator content, then Arabic local-dish recognition is a strong enough selling point on its own, and the "local-cuisine AI calorie app" model doesn't necessarily depend on celebrities in other languages. (3) If Cal AI or DietAI launches an Arabic or Turkish version with a local dish library and starts buying paid ads locally, the niche-language gap closes.

[Android store page ↗](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.m7mdiyat.zubdah) [iOS store page ↗](https://apps.apple.com/app/id6794258668)

**Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report**

Competitors

| Name | Where | Launched | Scale | How it differs from this one |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cal AI | iOS | 2024 | Play 4.57M installs | The category benchmark, mostly English, growing through a US creator network. Zubdah is Arabic, built around Arabic food, and backed by a local celebrity. |
| MyFitnessPal / Yazio / Lifesum | Other | 2010–2014 | Play 137M / 58.8M / 29.7M | Western food databases need manual lookup. Zubdah recognizes Arabic dishes from photos and calculates based on actual serving sizes. |
| رشاقة Rashaqa(Madar Software) | Android | 2018 | Google Play 8.27M installs, #7 in the Saudi health chart | An established Arabic step-counting and calorie app. Food lookup is manual, with no AI photo scanning and no video-to-recipe feature. |
| AI Calorie Counter・DietAI(Social Tech.) | Android | 2024-09 | Play 4.64M; 7-day +77k | An Arabic localization of a global tool, driven by paid ads. Zubdah relies on its founder's personal brand and spends almost nothing on acquisition. |
| Calo / BitePal / SnapCalorie / CaloSync | Android | 2020–2025 | Calo 2.19M, BitePal 5.52M | A generic global product. It doesn't speak Saudi dialect and has no local content. |
| Zadi / Thaya / Captain Cal | Web | Not verified | Not verified | Also focused on Arab and Gulf food calorie tracking, but with no big-creator distribution. |
| ChatGPT / Gemini photo calorie questions | Big-company features | 2024 | — | Free and generic, but without food logging, goals, or progress tracking. |

Where users come from

- **Verified** **Founder's YouTube series integration** : Encise (4.88M subscribers). His video 2026-08-16 «رحلة التحول إلى غيوتارو | الأكل والتغذية» (Transformation to Gyutaro | Food and Nutrition) got 885K views, and the description links to Zubdah's App Store page. 09-23 video got 596K views, and its description links to zubdah.ai/download plus discount code ENC (valid two weeks).

- **Verified** **Founder's TikTok profile pinned links** : the bios of @encise (1.81M followers) and @chef.m7md (93.5K followers) both say "search «زبدة» in the store" plus zubdah.ai/download.

- **Verified** **Official TikTok daily educational shorts** : @zubdah.ai launched on 2026-10-05, has posted 22 videos, and has 14.5K followers. One video has 1.75M views 10-10, another 889K 10-15. The timing lines up with Play install milestones.

- **Verified** **Organic user recommendations** : ordinary users on TikTok recommend Zubdah (e.g., @maatixx.1 with 28K views).

- **Verified** **SEO** : zubdah.ai has public pages on Arabic dish calories by serving size, recipes, and a calorie calculator.

- **Verified** **RevenueCat Shipaton listing** : apps.shipaton.com/app/zubdah

- Inferred **paid acquisition** : not found; Meta library query failed, TikTok ad library only covers Europe

## Zubdah (زبدة): an Arabic AI photo calorie app built by a top Saudi YouTuber

Data card: play_com.m7mdiyat.zubdah | research date 2026-11-06

### One line

Zubdah is an AI app in Arabic (Saudi colloquial copy) that uses photos to log calories and macronutrients, and can also pull recipes from TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube links. It took off mostly because **the developer is Encise (انسايز, real name Mohammed), a top Saudi comedy creator** . He ran a YouTube series called "Transformation Gyutaro" (fitness and fat loss) 2026 years ago, and in the Aug 16 episode on diet and nutrition he placed his app into the show. After that he drove downloads with YouTube mentions, a pinned TikTok profile link, a cooking side account, and a daily official TikTok. The product difference is that it recognizes Arabic dishes, which explains retention and good reviews, but it is not why it grew.

### 1. Basic data

| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Launched first on Google Play | 2026-07-27 | Data card / googleplay library |
| iOS launch | 2026-08-12(id6794258668,Health & Fitness / Food & Drink) | iTunes lookup |
| Cumulative Play global installs | 2026-08-21 4,712 → 09-20 21,729 → 10-04 33,473 → 10-21 52,668 → 11-06 70,419 | googleplay library app_day_ext (AppstoreSpy estimate) + app_day |
| Installs in the last 7 days | +12,067 (about +17%) | Data card |
| Play rating | 4.4–4.5, about 890 entries | Data card, store page |
| iOS ratings | Saudi Arabia 307 (+7 over the last 18 days), US 92, UAE 34, Kuwait 19, Jordan 14 | App Store library 2026-11-06, iTunes lookup |
| Charts | Google Play Saudi Health & Fitness free chart: #19 (10-29) → #37 (11-06). UAE #160–#180. iOS free charts: Jordan (category) #16, Saudi Arabia #58, Bahrain #37 | googleplay / appstore library |
| Paid | Free daily photo-scan limit; subscription unlocks everything. In-app purchases $5.99–$39.99 | Store page, official website |
| Self-reported on the website | "520 ratings across the App Store and Google Play, averaging 4.8 stars" | zubdah.ai |

The growth curve is **a series of steps** , not a smooth line. Installs picked up in late August, then 09-20 (+3.8K in a day), 10-04 (+3.2K), 10-14/15 (+6.4K), 10-21 (+4.4K), and 10-31 (+2.7K). Between steps, growth is only a few hundred a day. That shape fits a single creator posting content, not sustained paid acquisition.

### 2. Who the developer is (the key finding)

- The developer is M7MDIYAT LLC, a New Mexico LLC. The contact is mohammed@m7mdiyat.com. Its other app is the Quran AI interpretation app «محمديات» (on the iOS App Store as 2026-06-16). "M7MDIYAT / محمديات" means "Mohammed's things." (Google Play store page, iTunes lookup)

- The YouTube channel «محمديات» @m7mdiyat has 989K subscribers. Its videos include titles like "طلعت وجهي بالغلط" (I accidentally showed my face) and "قررت اغير محتواي رسميًا" (I officially decided to change my content). Not showing his face is exactly Encise's persona. (YouTube channel page)

- **Encise (انسايز)** : 4.88M YouTube subscribers, 1.81M TikTok followers, 10.4M likes. He is a Saudi comedy and commentary creator at the top tier. His TikTok bio now reads "Search "زبدة" in the store! 🧈 Or download from here 👇", and the link goes to zubdah.ai/download. (TikHub handler_user_profile @encise, 2026-11-06)

- His cooking side account «الشيف محمد» @chef.m7md (93.5K followers) has the same bio, "search «زبدة» in the store," and the same download link. Encise's video descriptions also list the cooking account ("Chef Mohammed"). (TikHub, YouTube video descriptions)

- Inferred: Zubdah is Encise's own product, or he is a major shareholder. It's not an ordinary paid promotion. His main account has carried the link for a long time, which isn't how one-off ads work. **The exact equity relationship is unverified.**

### 3. Where users came from (growth tactics)

1. **Founder's own YouTube series placements (confirmed, the main engine)**
    - 2026-05-08 «رحلة التحول إلى غيوتارو | الحلقة الاولى» (Transformation to Gyutaro, Episode 1), 950K views. He launched the fitness and fat-loss series, which set up the reason to count calories.
    - **2026-08-16 «رحلة التحول إلى غيوتارو | الأكل والتغذية» (Food and Nutrition), 885K views, description links to Zubdah's App Store download** . This came after the iOS launch (8-12). AppstoreSpy's curve also starts tracking in late August (8-21 already at 4.7K).
    - **2026-09-23 «إذا فزت علي.. تشوف وجهي» (If you beat me, you get to see my face), 596K views** . The description reads "Zubdah for Android and iPhone: zubdah.ai/download, discount code ENC, valid two weeks after the video is published." The discount code turns content traffic directly into subscriptions. (YouTube page, read via Jina)
    - The series is about real weight loss. A coach known as "الوحش المقنع / Masked Beast" appears, and he uses his own app to count his meals. **The product itself is a prop in the content** , not an ad awkwardly inserted into it.

2. **Long-running TikTok profile funneling (confirmed)** : the bios of @encise (1.81M followers) and @chef.m7md (93.5K followers) both say "search زبدة in the store." Asking users to search the name instead of tapping a link also helps the app's store search ranking.

3. **Official TikTok daily educational shorts (confirmed, the second step starting 2026-10)** : @zubdah.ai launched on 2026-10-05. By 11-06 it had posted 22 videos and has 14.5K followers. Almost every day it posts a template video along the lines of "you're fat because of what you eat!! 👆" (#سعرات #وجبات). The top videos include one with 1.75M views 10-10, one with 889K 10-15, one with 430K 10-08, one with 370K 11-02, and one with 260K 10-23. Across the 10 videos from 10-22 to 11-02, the total is about 900K views. The install steps 10-14/15 and 10-21 roughly line up with these hits (a correlation inference, no attribution data).

4. **Organic user recommendations (confirmed, small volume)** : ordinary TikTok users recommend it, e.g., @maatixx.1 with the video "how to organize your time" at 28K views (10-28), and @mohaze.1 with "the best calorie app" (11-02). (TikHub search for "تطبيق زبدة")

5. **SEO (confirmed as in progress, effect not verified)** : zubdah.ai has public pages on "Arabic dish calories (by actual serving size, not every 100 grams)," "recipes with calories," and "calorie calculator." They target Arabic long-tail searches like "how many calories in kabsa / mandi / mansaf."

6. **RevenueCat Shipaton 2026 showcase page (confirmed)** : apps.shipaton.com/app/zubdah is indexed, which means it entered RevenueCat's Shipaton hackathon. Subscriptions probably run through RevenueCat. That channel does little to drive consumer traffic.

7. **Paid acquisition: no evidence found** . The Meta ad library query hit a connection reset at the time and couldn't be completed. Our Meta and TikTok ad libraries also only track ads found through keyword discovery, which misses Middle East advertisers. The curve is stepped, not like sustained paid spend. **Unverified.**

8. Reasons users stay and pay (reviews): "Historic peak, the subscription price is reasonable, the only issue is there aren't enough free photo scans per day" (Nasser H, 9-17,19 people found it helpful; the review also said "an app like this can't only have 10K downloads"). "It has features no other paid app has, and you can use it effectively without subscribing" (10-11). Some users complain the subscription is expensive and the recipe section is behind the paywall (8-17). (Arabic reviews on Google Play)

### 4. Competitors

| Competitors | Platform | Launched | Scale (Google Play global installs, googleplay library 2026-11-06) | How Zubdah differs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cal AI | iOS / Android | 2024-07(Play) | 4.57M, 7 days +21k | The pioneer and benchmark of the photo calorie category. Mostly English, growing through a US creator network. Arabic dish recognition and local copywriting aren't the focus. |
| MyFitnessPal / Yazio / Lifesum / FatSecret | All platforms | 2010–2014 | 137M / 58.8M / 29.7M / 63.2M | A long-established food database, mostly Western food. Middle Eastern users have to find the "closest thing to kabsa" themselves (Zubdah's website makes exactly this point). |
| رشاقة Rashaqa(Madar Software) | Android / iOS | 2018 | 8.27M, ranked #7 in Saudi health | An established Arabic app. It counts steps and calories, food lookup is manual, and it has no AI photo scanning or video-to-recipe feature. |
| AI Calorie Counter・DietAI(Social Tech.) | Android | 2024-09 | 4.64M, 7 days +77k | A well-localized Arabic version of a global tool, driven by paid ads. No local celebrity endorsement. |
| CaloSync / Calo AI / BitePal / SnapCalorie / Nutrilio | Android / iOS | 2020–2025 | Calo 2.19M, BitePal 5.52M, Nutrilio 1.56M | All listed under Zubdah Play's "similar apps"; globally generic products that don't speak Saudi dialect |
| Zadi (zadi.ink), Thaya (getthaya.com, a Gulf-food calorie calculator), Captain Cal (kabsa calorie guide) | Web / App | Not verified | Not verified | They're also working the "Arabic / Gulf food calories" angle, which suggests localized AI calorie tracking already has several players; who came first, Zubdah or them, is unverified |
| ChatGPT / Gemini photo calorie questions | Big-company features | From ¥2024 | — | Free and generic, but it won't track your spending, goals or progress |

Verdict: this category has **no shortage of competitors** . Cal AI already proved the model, and there are plenty of localized followers in the Middle East. Zubdah's product differences (Arabic dishes, Saudi dialect, recipe extraction from video) are real, but on their own they wouldn't produce tens of thousands of installs a month. DietAI, another Arabic-localized app, grew through paid acquisition.

### 5. Differentiation

- **The distribution difference (the decisive one)** : the founder is a Saudi star with 5M-level reach, and the product was written into the "fat-loss transformation" series he's currently airing. Acquisition cost is close to zero, trust comes ready-made, and the audience (young Saudi men) overlaps with the fitness and fat-loss need.

- **The product difference (which helps retention and reviews)** : ① It recognizes Arabic dishes and calculates by actual portion sizes (kabsa, mandi, kabsa rice); ② the copy is in Saudi dialect ("وش تسوي زبدة", "خلّ زبدة تحسب"), which feels familiar; ③ paste a TikTok/Reels/YouTube link and it extracts the recipe and calories per serving, a feature that fits how people in the region scroll through cooking videos; ④ fast iteration: October added manual logging, barcode scanning, moving meals between days, and a vote-sorted "Explore" section (per the Play update notes).

- **Is this why it took off?** The main reason is distribution (the founder's IP); the product difference is secondary. The evidence is that the install curve's steps line up with video release dates, and early reviews say things like "this app didn't get the attention it deserved," suggesting early users came mainly from his followers and organic store traffic was thin.

### 6. How many people have seen it

- No public revenue (not on TrustMRR, and the founder hasn't shared numbers); in the local x-radar corpus, "zubdah" appeared 0 times in 90 days; no media coverage.

- But in Saudi Arabia, Encise's 5M+ followers have all seen it, so it has some name recognition in **an Arabic-speaking consumer niche** ; **it's almost unknown in the going-global / indie dev circles** .

- Copycats: I found no clear evidence anyone is copying it. Zadi, Thaya, Captain Cal and other "Gulf food calorie" products share its direction, but whether they're copies is unverified.

### 7. What others can borrow

1. **"Creators building their own app" is far more efficient than hiring influencers** : turning the product into a prop in a series the creator is already telling (fat loss → calorie counting) earns more trust than a one-off sponsor read and can be reused episode after episode.

2. **Write "search X in the store" on the homepage instead of only linking** : this builds store search ranking and brand-term searches at the same time.

3. **A dedicated discount code (ENC) with a two-week validity window** : it concentrates one video's traffic into conversions within two weeks and measures how well the channel performs.

4. **A generic AI category (Cal AI) + a language / cuisine gap + a big local IP** : this combination can be moved to other language markets (Turkish, Indonesian, Hindi...).

5. **An official account posting daily educational short-form videos from a template** : a fixed format like "You're fat because of X !!👆" costs little to produce, and in Saudi Arabia it has reached 1.75M views.

### 8. Still unclear

- The exact relationship between Encise and M7MDIYAT LLC: founder, partner, or long-term endorser? This is a strong inference, with no on-record statement to confirm it.

- Revenue: it hasn't charted on any top-grossing list, so subscription conversion and revenue are unknown.

- Whether it runs paid acquisition (Meta library lookup failed; the TikTok ad library only covers Europe).

- Real iOS download numbers (307 Saudi ratings, roughly a third of Play's).

- Long-term retention after the follower-driven spike: growth has been pushed in discrete steps, and organic growth between big creator posts is only a few hundred a day.

### Sources

- Google Play store page (en, ar/sa): [play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.m7mdiyat.zubdah](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.m7mdiyat.zubdah)

- iTunes lookup: id6794258668 (sa/us/ae/kw/eg), id6779788235 (محمديات)

- Website: [zubdah.ai/](https://zubdah.ai/)

- Shipaton showcase page: [apps.shipaton.com/app/zubdah](https://apps.shipaton.com/app/zubdah)

- YouTube: [www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkI0zW6kOPk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkI0zW6kOPk) (2026-08-16.9M), [www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcHvIMnvMsA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcHvIMnvMsA) (2026-09-23.6M, discount code ENC), [www.youtube.com/@Encise](https://www.youtube.com/@Encise) (4.88M subscribers), [www.youtube.com/@m7mdiyat](https://www.youtube.com/@m7mdiyat) (989k subscribers)

- TikTok (TikHub, 2026-11-06): profiles and videos for @encise, @chef.m7md, @zubdah.ai; search "تطبيق زبدة"

- Our database: googleplay (app_day, app_day_ext, chart_rank, app_profile), appstore (app_day, app_profile), 2026-11-06

- x-radar search "zubdah": 0 posts in 90 days

This article was written by AI from public data and the data we collect daily. Numbers are sourced, and inferences are labeled.