During the recent Intel® Liftoff Hackathon for African AI Startups, we had the pleasure of talking with Intel® Liftoff program member, Othman Benkiran, a visionary AI founder from Casablanca, Morocco. His journey into the world of AI innovation offers valuable insights for aspiring entrepreneurs, especially those who come from traditionally underrepresented regions.
From Side Quest to Main Quest
Before becoming an AI founder, Othman was working on various post-graduate projects through his startup, Undefine. These included MainQuest, a pitch deck screener for venture capitalists and an investment readiness guide for startups. His goals are, in his own words, utopic: "I wanted to work on increasing the complexity of reflection. I wanted consciousness to grow on this planet."
Othman transitioned to AI engineering just a few months before the release of ChatGPT. The advent of generative AI opened new avenues and accelerated his progress. It enabled him to pivot towards AI as his primary focus.
Partnering with Modus VC
Through the Intel® Liftoff Hackathon for African AI Startups, Othman connected Modus Capital, an introduction that led to a fruitful and transformative partnership. During the hackathon, Othman presented a decision-making tool powered by AI. The judges from Modus were impressed by its potential - so much so, that they could see themselves as clients.
Since then, they have formed a design partnership that has proved to be an invaluable source of feedback and helped Undefine to adapt and become more customer-centric. It has also given Othman a window into how investment gets done, giving him a deeper understanding of the startup ecosystem as a whole.
Lessons Learned in Building an AI Startup
There’s a lot that entrepreneurs and aspiring founders can learn from Othman’s journey. Here are just some of the highlights from his conversation with Eugenie Wirz, Global Community Manager at Intel® Liftoff for Startups.
Time management: Othman warns against underestimating the time it takes to develop AI solutions. Building a market-ready product takes considerable time and effort, even with the latest advances in AI technology.
Balancing MVP and Vision: finding the balance between developing a minimum viable product (MVP) and realizing a broader vision can be challenging. Othman’s advice is to focus on customer experience, and create solutions that “bring them joy”.
Drop the jargon: in Othman’s experience, buzz words are useful because they contract rich concepts into a single term. But he cautions against overuse of jargon. “Pitch-deck screener for startups” expresses everything that VCs need to understand in 5 short words. “GenAI”, despite being shorter, is not clearer.
mainQuest: Automating Knowledge Analysis
Undefine's flagship product mainQuest helps VCs screen and guide promising startups throughout the early due diligence process. With mainQuest, VCs don't have to spend hours reading decks, and instead can quickly determine thesis match, market risks, product-founder compatibility, breakdowns of the opportunity by framework, and much more. This allows them to grok in more complexity to their decision-making, without triggering cognitive overload. At the same time, mainQuest enables VCs with what they need to work on to gear their startup for success, by investor, enabling African entrepreneurs to leverage VC expertise much more effectively than by email.
Unlike a chatbot, mainQuest is built on modular LLMs that simulate insight generation. Its capabilities surpass current standards in building and managing complex knowledge tasks, as well as retrieval-augmented generation. This allows mainQuest to provide advanced insights, like what assumptions the founders are making to justify their addressable markets, while staying grounded in the information available.
Africa’s AI ecosystem is brimming with potential - and we at Intel® Liftoff are thrilled to accelerate the continent’s most ambitious founders. If you’re one of them, we would love to help you realize your vision. Apply to the Intel® Liftoff Program for Startups and let’s get started.
As a Software Tools Ecosystem Specialist at Intel, I’ve had the privilege of working on the dynamic GenAI initiative. My focus is on driving engagement with the software developer audience. I'm a proud team member of the Intel® Liftoff for Startups and the Developer Engagement, Relations, and Studio team.