Kush Desai

founder @ Vestral
- Investing 📈
- AI agents & quantum computing 👾
- Embedded Lending should be an industry norm 💰

[Kush Desai @kushdesai]

Let me tell you the most useful thing I've learned doing outreach for Vestral.

The most important thing when founding a startup is to talk to a broad range of your ICP and have them guide you to a product based on pattern recognition. But most founders really struggle with actually getting in contact with their potential customers when starting out.

What we found through tons of testing is that response rate really depends on research a lot more than it depends on volume.

One of the CEOs we cold emailed had answered exactly zero cold emails in ten years. He answered ours. When he took the call he told us why, a person obviously wrote it, it was about him specifically, and the last one like it hit his inbox around 2016.

That email took most of a day to write. What he built, what his data science team runs in-house, one question only he could answer.

Cold LinkedIn outbound converts around 1 in 50. So the standard is to send fifty to book one, and everyone's inbox gets worse.

We ended up deciding to flip the variable, hours of research per email instead of emails per day. One researched email has beaten fifty templated ones every time we've tested it, and one honest conversation with an operator who lived your market teaches you more than the other 49 would have.

It's slower and honestly so much better.

[Kush Desai @kushdesai]

@KobeissiLetter This only reaches to a certain point. Once the semiconductor chips become efficient enough on a quantum computing sense, all this demand for datacenters is going to plummet. This growth is feeding the present conditions, and not helping us long term.

[Kush Desai @kushdesai]

This is really escalating more than it needs to. Having other countries get involved really brings things to another level and can escalate exponentially. They really need to take an outside perspective and understand what they're getting into. Its hurting our economy and increasing conflict.

[Kush Desai @kushdesai]

@WatcherGuru This was the exact reason that Anthropic was so careful with Mythos. They had better security, compliance, and precaution. This all happened because OpenAI was reckless and didn't care about contingency planning. Shows a big reason why Anthropic is bypassing OpenAI on every level

[Kush Desai @kushdesai]

Nobody warns you about the hardest part of B2B sales.

You have to earn trust before you have proof. I learned this selling to banks.

The bigger the bank, the more money it guards. The more money it guards, the slower it moves.

Trust is the whole product.

So you cannot rush them.

You start small. You prove it works. Then you spend a year or two just staying close.

Every update. Every milestone. Every honest setback.

By the time the big deal comes, they know you and your journey.

Here is the lesson that changed how I sell.

Treat every single lead like it matters.

The one who needs more time today is your biggest deal tomorrow.

Look at Marqeta. A payments startup that nearly died in 2015.

The founder went all in on one early customer. Square.

He built exactly what they needed and stayed glued to them.

Square grew into the majority of Marqeta's revenue.

That one relationship carried them to a multi-billion dollar IPO.

So when a lead goes quiet, keep showing up. Your biggest deal is often the one that just needed more of you.

[Kush Desai @kushdesai]

@KobeissiLetter This war is so unnecessary and yet we can't learn from our mistakes. How many times has a peace deal fallen through? Oil is spiking, inflation is rising, are these not obvious signals? All these actions clearly don't have the American belief in mind.

[Kush Desai @kushdesai]

@RepThomasMassie @SecWar Who is even there to enforce this? International conflicts can't be dealt with this easily. Its not as simple as it sounds

[Kush Desai @kushdesai]

@BRICSinfo Well does this look familiar. We're just going to have another cycle of peace deals falling through. Have we not learned from our mistakes? Oil is spiking, inflation is starting to persist. How does any of this benefit our economy? Its so unnecessary

[Kush Desai @kushdesai]

@WatcherGuru He's right. the market condition isn't looking too good. Semis got hit hard, and they are whats driving the GDP right now. If one more leg gets sweeped, everything is falling under the rug. Sell now, buy later, and then sit down and enjoy the quantum computing era unfold

[Kush Desai @kushdesai]

@HormuzLetter Will this be the first step at a nuclear war? This is not a good idea. Insinuating a fight in the nuclear territory is just stretching the slack for the word "nuclear" in any kind of conflict. It's not an avenue we should go down, and it's not even necessary

[Kush Desai @kushdesai]

@unusual_whales Interesting. What if there was some kind of capital market out there that allowed people to trade "bonds" on iPhone leases, or for any technological product in that category. Has anyone thought of doing this before?

[Kush Desai @kushdesai]

@WatcherGuru There are so many stocks out there that you can't just generalize this point across the whole capital market. There isn't one method for trading each kind of stock, especially among the infinite sectors to trade across, each moving independent of the others.

[Kush Desai @kushdesai]

@RobertCxl @WatcherGuru No way to tell for sure, but between 5-10 years is a good estimate!

[Kush Desai @kushdesai]

ONLY 2% OF HOUSEHOLDS PAY FOR AN AI SUBSCRIPTION

It is the largest movement of technology of all time, with billions being poured into it.

Yet, this number is so little.

It tells you that we are still in the beginning.

We are only in the first inning of consumer monetization with AI. We're so early and the opportunity is still massive!

[Kush Desai @kushdesai]

@spectatorindex Iran really wants it don't they. They can't fight everyone. There's only so much one country can handle at once.

[Kush Desai @kushdesai]

@WatcherGuru This is great to hear. More regulation around crypto means more room for innovation. Currently all its good for is tax benefits and illegal activities. It's not used towards its potential, but these steps that Nigeria is taking will get it there.

[Kush Desai @kushdesai]

@spectatorindex Have we not already imposed tariffs higher than the Smoot Hawley? How is this economically reliable and stable? Its just messing us over long term

[Kush Desai @kushdesai]

@unusual_whales Intimidation isn't peace. This war wont end unelss there's some kind of compromise. We're just following the same trap of peace deals falling through 5 times. Its about time for change

[Kush Desai @kushdesai]

@KobeissiLetter What's causing this? I know that the quantum computing wave will cause a bubble in this sector once again, but why is it starting to plummet now?