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In this episode, we sit down with Hassan Fayed, founder of Aydi, the company behind Orth, an AI agronomist now live in almost 200 countries just a few months after launch.
In September 2025, aydi announced the close of a $7.5M seed round backed by COTU Ventures, Nuwa Capital, and Daltex, amongst others.
Hassan grew up working his family's farm in Egypt, moved to Dubai, and then packed his bags during COVID to tackle one of agriculture's most stubborn problems: the billion-strong workforce that's been almost entirely left out of the software revolution.
But what started as a workforce management platform has since pivoted into something far more ambitious.
This is by far and away one of our favourite episodes we've done. Hassan is deeply thoughtful, refreshingly honest about what he hasn't figured out yet, and just a terrific person to pepper with questions for the better part of two hours.
We cover:
Why software has broadly failed farmers, and why it has nothing to do with farmers being anti-technology.
How 95% of the world's farms have never been visited by an agronomist, and why the advice most farmers do receive is biased by the people selling them inputs.
How Orth went from zero to 80,000 users and almost $50 million in economic value delivered, with zero humans in the loop at any stage.
Why Aydi deliberately hasn't figured out monetisation yet, and why Hasan thinks that's exactly the right call.
How the team compressed time to value from 27 minutes down to 3, and why they're now considering slowing it back down.
Why Hasan believes that if your job can be done remotely, there's a very high chance AI will be doing it soon.
His surprisingly strong take on AI personality, why brand and tone will become a significant contributor to enterprise value, and why he thinks we'll develop relationships with AI agents whether we like it or not.
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Timestamps
00:00 - Cold Open
03:45 - Why Agritech Has Struggled
07:30 - Hassan's Farming Background & Origin Story
11:30 - The COVID Lightbulb Moment
16:00 - Getting Started: Boots on the Ground
19:30 - Russia-Ukraine Impact & Pivot to SaaS
22:30 - AI Enters the Picture
26:30 - The Global Agronomist Shortage
30:30 - Launching Earth in 200 Countries
33:00 - How Earth's AI Model Works
41:00 - Go-to-Market & Overcoming Farmer Skepticism
52:00 - Funding & Building the Cap Table
1:04:30 - Time to Value, Leadership & the Future
6 biggest takeaways from our conversation with Hassan
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