Achraf Adjileye

Achraf Adjileye is Mike's closest friend and primary co-founder in sports tech. The LinkedIn record spells the first name Achraff with two F's; the WhatsApp contact is saved as "Achraf Paris" and is also known as Adji Leyeb (email [email protected]) and Moumine ADJ. The various spellings refer to the same person. He lives at 2 Avenue Aristide Briand in Bagneux (92220), a suburb south of Paris.

Role in Mike's Life

The relationship is layered: peer entrepreneur, co-founder, business mentor, and personal best friend. It dominates both Mike's WhatsApp (301 days of chat, 1033 audio messages) and the LinkedIn messages (36 threads over 2024–2025, the single largest correspondent). See Mike and Achraf for the relationship dynamics.

Achraf is one to two years ahead of Mike in startup maturity. He offers strategic counsel on SaaS pricing, B2B go-to-market, and fundraising. Mike supplies execution: frontend and application code for shared projects, rapid prototyping, and technical shipping. The division of labor is consistent across every project they collaborate on.

Projects Co-Founded with Mike

• BALLER — the core foundational AI model (Transformer, 53M parameters, trained on lineup and interaction data across 78 competitions). Achraf's originating IP.
• SquadGen — consumer-facing AI squad builder deployed on top of BALLER.
• Goal Contribution — metric for quantifying player impact in goal sequences.
• Transfer Portal — the 2026 evolution into an AI Fantasy Football Agent.
• ScoreSphere — Achraf's earlier fitness analytics platform, a community-first alternative to Strava. Mike gave feedback but did not co-build.

The sports tech thread — football analytics, scouting networks, fantasy agents — is entirely Achraf's domain and brings Mike into a world he would not have entered solo.

Origin and Context

The relationship was already deep by March 2025 when the WhatsApp thread begins serious use. LinkedIn messages stretching back to 2024 include a Station F meetup as one of the first touchpoints. Achraf completed a master's at MVA and attempted placements at Entrepreneurs First and at an AI startup school, both of which rejected him.

Achraf is Muslim. The WhatsApp thread includes Eid Mubarak exchanges and Ramadan references, shared with Mike as a matter of course. Mike participates in the religious rhythm through Achraf — one of the few entry points for Muslim Faith in the wiki's record of Mike's life.

Communication Style

Audio messages dominate. Of 1,033 audio exchanges in the WhatsApp thread, most are Achraf thinking out loud — pitching a strategy, reacting to a product, unpacking a grievance. Written messages are short coordination bursts: addresses, meeting times, "azy on se tail" (let's go). French is the default, with English reserved for tech terms, memes, and emphasis. Tone runs from playful ("mon gar," "frr") to grave (the April 14, 2026 two-hour conversation about leaving France).

Network

Through Achraf, Mike is connected to the Paris sports tech scene: scouts from Arsenal FC, Chelsea, Brentford, Bayern Munich, Paris FC, and the Professional Football Scouts Association (PFSA). The LinkedIn connection surge in August 2025 (38 new connections in one month) tracks directly onto Achraf's founder-led outreach strategy for SquadGen.

One of Achraf's cousins (30k Instagram followers) helped distribute Wayzze content in early 2025, and another cousin was an early Wayzze user. The family network extends into marketing leverage when Achraf mobilizes it.

Turning Points

• March 2025: ScoreSphere pitch deck shared with Mike; Wayzze launch announced.
• June–August 2025: Both working from anomalie.space at different moments; Achraf attends multiple evenings.
• July 16–26, 2025: Joint hackathon sprint — lu.ma Hackathon July 2025. Shared GitHub repo, computer-vision mobile game, 5K prize pool.
• October–December 2025: Y Combinator|YC application co-preparation. Achraf writes responses leveraging Claude extensively.
• January 2026: AI Fantasy Football Agent vision crystallizes. Mike commits to UI work.
• April 14, 2026: Two-hour conversation in which both agree that leaving France is on the table ("Toronto" surfaces). One of the highest-stakes exchanges in the friendship record.