In this episode, we sit down with Vishal Kumar, co-founder of Twin Peak Wealth Advisors, a boutique financial advisory firm he launched with his identical twin brother, Tushar. Vishal shares how early life experiences—including the loss of their father and the influence of their entrepreneurial mother—shaped their path into wealth management. He opens up about bootstrapping their business straight out of UC Berkeley, cold-calling engineers in Silicon Valley, and eventually scaling their firm to manage over $150 million in assets.
From building credibility in a saturated industry to embracing niche marketing, Vishal offers invaluable insights into what it takes to grow a service-driven business while staying true to your values. Whether you’re a budding entrepreneur or simply curious about what it’s like to manage money for the tech elite, this episode is packed with practical advice, real-life lessons, and entrepreneurial honesty.
Berkeley Startup Podcast is produced by University FM.
Episode Copy
Better and effective marketing made a big difference
We did a lot of cold calling and just spent our networks that way. It wasn’t until 10 years into the business where we started to really consider, Hey, what can we do to have hyper growth in this industry? That’s where we realized that what was missing was not our sales aspect or the ability to get referrals. It was marketing effectively. Our top of the funnel was much smaller than it could and should have been. Once we started investing, putting time and energy and money behind the marketing efforts, that’s when we saw our business almost grow by threefold in one year. My brother and I really started applying ourselves, understanding business, marketing, investing in coaches and mentors very heavily, et cetera, and that’s when our growth really started to accelerate.
On talking to people who may not be interested
You build thick skin over time, but you realize that you’re not going to be for everybody. And you’re really trying to go through this world and figure out who the people are that you are speaking to and that resonate with your message. And I realize you don’t need to be everybody’s cup of tea. You just need to find the people that you are that cup of tea for, right? And so, I think dealing with rejection is something that you get used to very quickly when you are in a sales-oriented career. It was tough, but we got comfortable with it early on.
Entrepreneurship comes with trade-offs
I think it can be a very rewarding journey but it comes with a lot of risk. You know, I had seen my mom having the flexibility of being able to be there for us as kids because she was a business owner. But I think people who get into entrepreneurship for the flexibility, that’s one thing I’ve learned is, it’s not really it.
Because you don’t just have a boss. Every single one of your clients is your boss, and then you’re also managing your employees, your hr, you’re just everything. So I would say anybody that thinks of it as like this is easier than going and working for a corporation, that’s definitely not true. And I think a lot of people know that now, too.