Mehdi Yacoubi

building ai agents for construction/ logistics/ manufacturing/ mining

the long game:

[Mehdi Yacoubi @Mehdiyac]

Our daughter was born yesterday.

I am now a father.

Magical feeling.

[Mehdi Yacoubi @Mehdiyac]

founders: try to meditate this frequently

a lot is happening in between fundraising annoucements and it's rarely what it looks like in the headlines

[Carles Reina @Carles_Reina]

88% of VC-backed founders who exited their companies got $0. Eduardo Azevedo and Kent Smetters analysed 157,669 startups and 248,454 founders from 1987 to 2025.

Let that sink in...

[Mehdi Yacoubi @Mehdiyac]

@jjvelazs yessir big learning for me as well

now if I can get an intro to the ceo/ or some execs, I do everything I can to get it, and make it feel that we were sent by them to the ops/it team

[Mehdi Yacoubi @Mehdiyac]

one thing i’ve learned selling into large companies is that you can often tell very early why a deal will die

we’ve had deals where the operational team loved the product, but there was no senior sponsor

others where the pilot worked, but nobody had agreed what result would be enough to justify a real contract

others where everyone was excited until IT or procurement showed up three months later

the best deals usually have support from the top very early. when the CEO or senior management actually wants something to happen, the rest of the company moves very differently

i now spend much more time asking: if this deal closes, what had to happen before the signature?

who needed to care, what needed to be proven, and what could still block it, etc

that usually tells you what to do next.

[Mehdi Yacoubi @Mehdiyac]

starting with customer-specific software can be a very good way to build a software company

early on, you usually don’t understand the problem well enough to know what should be standardized

so you build closely with customers, adapt a lot, and learn from real use.

that flexibility is also a real sales advantage early. when you are small, being willing to adapt to how a customer actually works can help you win deals that a more rigid product would lose;

after a few deployments, the same things start showing up again.

the same workflows, integrations, edge cases, and pieces of logic.

that is when the product starts to become obvious.

the goal is to keep the flexibility that helps you win, while making each deployment easier than the last.

[Mehdi Yacoubi @Mehdiyac]

when I tell people our monthly burn they cannot believe it

[Brett Calhoun @brettcalhounn]

Founders from overlooked places tend to be capital efficient because there never was another option.

[Lauren Frailey @laurenfrailey1]

unfortunately as i’ve gotten older i’ve learned that having an incessant need to travel does in fact mean you’re running away from something

[Mehdi Yacoubi @Mehdiyac]

a lot of construction, logistics and manufacturing executives are already using codex and claude code themselves

many are engineers. they test prompts, upload documents, build small workflows, and understand the tools well,

so they often ask us a fair question: "why use you instead of just doing this ourselves?"

the answer usually becomes clear once they try to move from one person getting a good result to a company using AI every day

then you run into internal rules, old systems, bad data, security, approvals, edge cases, and people working in different ways.

the models are getting better very fast, but the work needed to make them reliable & useful inside real companies is still huge

[du @thedulab]

Tried and true way to turn your life around is to just do the opposite of what your anxieties tell you to do. Great place to start is by pretending you already made it. Imagine you had the money, the relationships, the ideal reality you see in your head

How would this version of yourself be moving? Doesn't have to be some huge thing. Could literally be adding guac to the order or covering the tab for a friend when the mind would usually look at your current circumstances and make you believe that you need to hold onto your limited resources for dear life

Could be getting out more, striking up conversations with strangers, showing your true personality without the usual mask of "I don't have enough status" because that's exactly how light and relaxed you'd be if you were loved by those around you and had nothing to prove

Pursuing a project out of pure curiosity, choosing to make a business decision out of excitement over neuroticism, letting an idea play out over months instead of scrapping it after a few days, etc. Why wouldn't you if you knew your level of internal abundance gave you permission to build your life in the most self respecting way

Embody that energy for a month and see what happens. Perhaps you'll come to find that instead of needing to "get there" first before you can be here, "being there" now is what actually gets you here

[Mehdi Yacoubi @Mehdiyac]

the best way to avoid AI psychosis is to spend more time in the real world.

talk to business owners. go to factories, construction sites, mines, etc.

you quickly realize how much work is still left to do

[Jeff Tang @jefftangx]

The easiest way to avoid AI psychosis is to just build things for the real world

Defense and bio founders are a lot more grounded than AI founders

[Mehdi Yacoubi @Mehdiyac]

chronic pain is a defense mechanism to prevent you from feeling what your brain has learned to treat as dangerous

[Crémieux @cremieuxrecueil]

A lot of people subject themselves to chronic pain to avoid acute pain.

[Mehdi Yacoubi @Mehdiyac]

@antinertia triste... pour aller où ? tu as déjà une idée ?

[Mehdi Yacoubi @Mehdiyac]

@jemonleon @fodor @kikers huge! congrats

[Mehdi Yacoubi @Mehdiyac]

@samuelgil congrats!!

[du @thedulab]

Most relationship problems are ultimately just a lust for life problem. Gf/wife unhappy, kids distant, some disconnect with the family etc. You try to solve the discomfort through tangible achievement. Think it's because you're not making enough, providing enough, "successful" enough

You need to upsize the house, upgrade the vacations, perform more, show off more. Not realizing that this comparison based expectation you created in your mind and how it subsequently causes you to behave is exactly what's causing the problems in the first place

Meanwhile the only problem is just a severe lack of vitality. You're boring and moody and see reality as an obligation and take yourself way too seriously. You're not a beacon of energy, you don't inspire the people around you, you don't inject wonder and curiosity into their lives. There's no adventure, no spontaneity, no presence. You lost their love because you lost the love for yourself

[Mehdi Yacoubi @Mehdiyac]

whenever it feels like you’re not winning, remember:

“if you do everything, you will win.”

then ask the obvious question:

are you actually doing everything?

most of the time, there is still *way* more you can do

simple yet very powerful framing

[Mehdi Yacoubi @Mehdiyac]

@joantubau @rojas1977 🐐🐐

[Mehdi Yacoubi @Mehdiyac]

@antinertia they can keep growing more slowly on their way to be a $B asset

plenty of examples, harder but this way exists

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

Be profitable and run your company with maximal agentic loops

You don’t need to sell more of your co anymore

$10M profit per year reinvested is like an annual Series A no dilution

The best startups do this now. No whinging about the Series A/B crunch.

You don’t need saving.

[Mehdi Yacoubi @Mehdiyac]

@TopherNOW some of the advice is "ok" but it fails to see that most men are invisible in the eyes of women today

[Chris Hatch @Dirtdog]

Attention Young Men:

I am surrounded by 20 year old girls in my life that are smart, capable, hard working and cute. Nobody is dating them. Not sure what the deal is, but I don’t get it.

Step 1: Stop playing video games

Step 2: Head to great clips and get that lettuce cleaned up

Step 3: Hit a shower (when dating hygiene is critical)

Step 4: Go clean your car

Step 5: Sign up for a yoga class

Step 6: Go to the yoga class

Step 7: Ask a cute for her phone number at yoga class (yes you can meet girls IRL and not just on the apps - 10/10 the Dirt Dog highly recommends)

Step 8: Follow up within 2 days with a phone call and ask them out for this coming weekend Friday or Saturday night.

Step 9: IMPORTANT - come up with a good game plane for date night. Get a dinner reservation, get an activity planned. Let them know in advance what you are doing so they can dress appropriately. I know you are gunna roll off the couch and head to date night, but they are not. They are going to stress about what to wear and call at least 6 different people on FaceTime to ask their opinion.

Step 10: I highly recommend you bring flowers to the door step. I’m not covering that you go to the doorstep, because if you don’t do that you have no hope here. Women want men to date them. You don’t need to break the bank on flowers. Head to Trader Joe’s. Grab 2 different kinds of flowers. If you don’t know what matches find the closest looking lady to your mom at TJ’s and ask her. Wrap the 2 flowers into 1 bouquet with paper. Bonus Points you can cut open a TJ bag and use that as the paper.

Step 11: Be a gentleman on the date. She isn’t there to hear your life story. Ask her about her. For every 1 question you answer, ask her 3. Open Doors, pay for the meal, be polite.

Provided you follow most of this guideline you are highly likely to get yourself an opportunity for date number 2.

Keep going until you find someone that you can’t imagine not being around all the time. That’s when you have found a good one for you.

My life is complete with my wife as my companion. I wish you the same fortune in life. Happy Hunting.