From: aidotengineer
Mounir Mouawad is the CEO and co-founder of Porsche AI, an AI startup [00:00:03]. He shares his experiences transitioning from big tech to founding his own company, particularly for those considering a similar leap or who are in the early stages of an AI company [00:00:28].
Professional Background
Before founding Porsche AI, Mouawad held various product roles in big tech companies, always based in London [00:00:49]:
- Amazon: Launched the deals program in the UK, used for events like Black Friday and Prime Day [00:00:53].
- Google: Launched and expanded Google Pay across 30 markets in EMEA [00:01:02].
- Stripe: Led the Bank as a Service initiative for EMEA [00:01:06].
The Decision to Start a Company
Mouawad always harbored a desire to “do my own thing” [00:01:11]. Eventually, he reached a point where he felt compelled to take the plunge, describing it as feeling like “nothing else made sense anymore” and like a “copout” if he didn’t [00:01:18].
Founding Porsche AI
In June of the previous year, Mouawad co-founded Porsche AI with Emma, whom he met at Stripe [00:01:28]. Porsche AI is an open-source SDK designed for building production agents, with a specific focus on regulated industries [00:01:38].
Lessons Learned from Starting an AI Company
Mouawad shares key insights from his experience:
User Problems and Discovery in AI Startups
The process of identifying and understanding user problems in the AI space is significantly different from traditional product development [00:02:11]:
- Undefined Problems: Unlike conventional problems with established shapes and adjacencies (e.g., payment products at Stripe), AI user problems are often emergent properties of the space [00:02:31]. Users might know they want to use AI and see opportunities, but they don’t know their specific problems [00:02:25].
- Rapid Change: What is technologically possible in AI changes very quickly, making traditional three-to-six-month roadmaps obsolete [00:03:39].
- Hypothesis-Driven Iteration: Startups must make directional bets and iterate very quickly by releasing products and observing user reactions [00:03:52]. This hypothesis-driven, deliberate iteration provides the necessary focus [00:04:06].
- Creating Narratives: Conventional user storyboards and critical user journeys are less effective [00:04:24]. Founders must help users overcome initial inertia, create narratives around specific use cases, and work collaboratively to anchor on a problem to refine the product [00:04:58]. This process eventually leads to more tangible and scoped problem spaces [00:05:39].
Gratifying Product Development and Velocity
The product development process in an AI startup can be highly gratifying due to its speed [00:05:59].
- Rapid Iteration: It’s possible to go from a new technological standard (like MCP) to an idea, product spec, design, testing, and release within days or even hours [00:06:21]. This quick transition from concept to deployed code is exhilarating [00:06:40].
- Velocity as a Baseline: In AI, velocity is not just a “nice-to-have” but a “table stakes” requirement [00:06:52].
- Capitalizing on Opportunities: Opportunities that provide a competitive edge (like new protocols or models such as agent-to-agent protocol or diffusion models) emerge and disappear quickly [00:07:07]. The ability to react swiftly and build products around these breakthroughs is crucial for brand growth and cementing a position in the developer or user community [00:07:31].
Outreach, Awareness, and Adoption Challenges
This area has been the toughest and steepest learning curve for Mouawad [00:07:59].
- Lack of Scaffolding: Unlike big tech, startups lack the inherent advantages of established brands for outreach, awareness, traffic, and adoption [00:08:11].
- Signal vs. Noise: The AI space is characterized by intense hype and “meme wars,” making it difficult to distinguish signal from noise [00:08:25].
- Reliance on People: People primarily follow other people [00:09:02]. Without the power of a major brand’s endorsement (like a tweet from a founder), startups must actively find and engage credible industry voices and advocates to act as force multipliers [00:09:21].
- Strategic Partnerships: To build brand awareness and drive traffic without a large corporate infrastructure, it is essential to find allies [00:09:49]. These can be other startups at a similar stage or slightly ahead, seeking synergy for partnerships, cross-marketing, and cross-selling [00:09:51]. Integrating products into the documentation of other companies (e.g., BrowserBase) can serve as a significant channel for discovery [00:10:04].
Mouawad acknowledges that he is still learning and not an expert, with the purpose of sharing his experiences for inspiration and discussion [00:11:18]. He invites engagement and connection on LinkedIn for further discussion [00:11:00]. He also encourages support for Porsche AI by starring their GitHub repository [00:11:37].