Questions
The things people actually ask.
Including the ones with awkward answers. If something you need isn’t here, ask us. A person replies.
The obvious ones
Is this another AI SDR?
No. Those sold autonomy and delivered spam, and the market spent two years cleaning up after them. OleaDesk sells control: it finds buyers and writes the outreach, and you approve every send. The friction is the feature.
Who is it for?
Anyone selling food and drink to trade buyers. Exporters shipping into new countries, importers and distributors building a range in one territory, and brand owners trying to get listed. The job is the same in all three cases: find the right buyer, reach them in your own voice, and follow up properly.
Where does my mail live?
On your machine. OleaDesk is a desktop app and your inbox is stored locally. We do not host it and we have no copy. AI features send only the specific text needed for the task, and we don't keep it.
Do I need an API key?
No. The AI is included in your plan and we manage it. You never create, paste or pay for a key.
Can it send without me?
No. Architecturally, no. Every message waits for your approval, and the refusal is enforced at the moment of sending rather than shown as a setting. There is no autopilot to switch on.
What happens when a buyer replies?
The sequence stops instantly and the conversation is handed to you. When they ask the price, OleaDesk never answers. It hands you that too, because a price is a commercial decision and not a text-generation problem.
How the agents work
Where do the buyers come from?
An agent researches a market you define and collects companies that publish contact details for trade enquiries, from their own websites and their own contact pages. It records why it thinks each one fits, so you can disagree with its reasoning rather than take it on faith.
Can it bring back old conversations?
Yes, and it is often the fastest win. Alongside finding new buyers, an agent watches the threads already in your inbox that went quiet: the sample you sent, the enquiry from a show, the buyer who said 'not this season'. It drafts the follow-up in your voice and waits for you to approve it.
Do you scrape LinkedIn or buy lists?
Neither. No personal profiles, no purchased databases. Loading a bought list into OleaDesk is against our terms, not for legal cover, but because it is how people destroy their own sending reputation.
How many buyers will I get?
An agent typically works through a market steadily rather than dumping a list on you. What matters more is how many are worth writing to, which depends entirely on your product and market. We would rather under-promise this than publish a number we haven't measured for your case.
Deliverability
Will this get my domain blacklisted?
The caps, the warm-up ramp and stop-on-reply exist precisely to prevent that, and they are not switches you can turn off. OleaDesk also sends inside your buyer's own working hours rather than at 3am their time. You are still the sender, so your domain's health is ultimately in your hands, but the product is built to protect it rather than to maximise volume.
How many emails a day does it send?
A deliberately small number: a daily cap with a warm-up ramp for new accounts. Tools that advertise a hundred thousand emails a month are selling you volume, and we think that is how domains die.
Do you track opens?
No. There is no tracking pixel, so we cannot tell you who opened a message, and we won't display a number we can't measure. It also means your recipients aren't being watched on your behalf.
Practicalities
Which email accounts does it work with?
Any account you can connect over IMAP and SMTP, which covers custom-domain business mail, and most providers. Direct one-click sign-in for Gmail and Outlook is in progress.
Is there a mobile app?
Not yet. OleaDesk is a Windows desktop application today. A companion for reading and approving on the phone is planned, and we would rather say that than imply it already exists.
Does it only work for olive oil?
No. It was built inside a food export business, which is why it understands trade, but nothing in it is specific to one product. It has already drawn interest from businesses well outside food.
What does it cost to run a trade show instead?
Ahmed's own figure is at least $15,000 per show once the stand, flights, hotel, samples, shipping and days away are counted. A year of OleaDesk on Starter is $1,080. It does not replace the handshake, and it is not really meant to. What it carries is the fortnight afterwards, when the follow-up decides whether the show was worth going to.