It’s not every day you hear about a teenager dropping out of university to build a multi-million dollar company, but that’s exactly what Asad has achieved with LTV.ai. At just 19, he founded the company with Canadian co-founder Kevin Kai, and within months, they were working with some of America’s largest retailers.
The young founders have captured the attention and support of some of the heavyweights in retail tech, securing seven-figure investments from prominent figures like Afterpay founder Nick Molnar, Honey founder George Ruan, and CSC Generation founder Justin Yoshimura. Think of it this way – if you want to revolutionize retail, who better to learn from than the founders who’ve already done it?
How a Cold Email Strategy Led to Major Retail Partnerships
Getting major US retailers to trust a 19-year-old’s company wasn’t a walk in the park. Asad took an analytical approach to the problem, spending four months perfecting their outreach strategy. “I basically lived in a room for 16 hours a day, testing different approaches until we figured it out,” he says. The result? A 2.5-3% booking rate for cold emails – a number that gets attention in B2B sales.
The strategy paid off. Today, LTV.ai works with major retailers like Sur La Table, Backcountry, The Sill, Spongellé, Fabletics, Fresh Clean Threads, and Beginning Boutique, with more major names on the horizon.
What LTV.ai Actually Does
The problem LTV.ai tackles is deceptively simple: despite all the talk of personalization, most e-commerce companies still send basically the same messages to all their customers. “Every brand is sending generic marketing emails with maybe some basic segmentation,” Asad explains. “We’re changing that by having AI create truly 1-to-1 conversations based on variables like location, past purchases, and customer feedback.”
The impact is significant. Marketing teams currently spend massive resources – “hundreds of thousands of dollars and teams of 5+ people,” according to Asad – to build campaigns that only resonate with about 10-20% of their audience. LTV.ai’s approach is delivering real results, with clients seeing significant increases in sales through these channels.
The Road Ahead
After building the company entirely remotely and raising seven figures in investment, LTV.ai is now closing its larger Series A round and establishing its first physical headquarters in Austin. Under Asad’s leadership, the company doubled month over month from July through December 2024.
While Asad can’t name names yet, he mentions that some of the largest retailers in the world – “brands everyone would recognize” – are set to adopt LTV.ai through early 2025 and beyond. The vision is ambitious but clear: “We want to replace complicated marketing systems with something simpler – a couple of decision-makers working with an AI co-pilot that can write copy, spot opportunities, automatically suggest segments and maximize revenue by holding one long continuous conversation with each individual,” says Asad.
As the company scales, they’re actively hiring across all departments, from engineering to customer success. With major retailers already on board and strong investor backing, this 20-year-old Pakistani-born founder is proving that in the age of AI, innovation knows no boundaries – geographical or otherwise.
