Guest author: Danish Ahmed, Founder of Startuptools.ai.
If it wasn’t for Stripe’s exceptional $6.5 billion round, the US would have seen a funding decline of 21%. While some companies continue to raise large rounds in struggling industries, others are way off the mark. So, how do you get noticed in a funding downturn?
From immortality-as-a-service to smell tech, countless 2022 inventions are shaking up the tech landscape, tapping into underserved markets and shifting consumers’ perceptions of “normal.” Competition is high and diverse, which means entrepreneurs need flawless business planning to launch products successfully.
Entrepreneurs are adopting AI left, right, and center, hoping it will place a band-aid on missing elements of their business model. But AI will only boost operations if a company initially also has a united mindset, a problem-solution fit, and well-researched strategic plans.
To maximize AI to ideate, plan, and drive business planning for big results, here are three tips for entrepreneurs.
Shift your mindset to adopt AI with ease
How we work with innovation is more important than the innovation itself. For example, if entrepreneurs see AI as a copilot rather than a human replacement, they instantly expand the opportunities in front of them.
While it’s true that chatbots can take over 25% of customer service channels, entrepreneurs must recognize that these replacements come with limits. The more important factor is that agents are needed for 75% of the existing role—and gain a quarter of their time back to nurture relationships or expand their skills.
Entrepreneurs need to nail down the tasks that give their company unique value and then look at how AI can enhance those elements, without AI taking over completely. The idea is to prepare the company vision first, and then use AI as an assistant to assess any gaps in the business plan.
Activate AI to tell you what your audience need
Building a solid service or product that drives results requires a compelling business idea and sufficient market potential. Already, entrepreneurs use tools like Tome or Plus AI to shape their stories in engaging multimedia canvases, eliminating design and formatting nuances. Based on prompts the tools can prepare presentations that cater for your audience. However, you need to have your concept and target market clear first.
Clarifying the concept requires evaluating the needs of different customer personas, and you can leverage ChatGPT for this. For example, if you tell ChatGPT that you’re a veteran marketer in digital media who knows all the tricks for SEO, you can ask the tool to create customer profiles for you. When you ask the LLM questions about your SEO service, it will only respond through the lens of these unique profiles.
Say you’re profiles include Sarah the baker, John the marketing manager of an e-commerce company, and Felicity the sales director of a B2B enterprise. Prompts like “what unique features would satisfy Sarah, Felicity, and John?” will produce a specialized list of areas where you can advance your SEO tool further to satisfy your potential target audience.
You can present your ideas to the tool and update your objectives and target market based on any gaps the AI exposes.
Maximize AI in business plan creation
The Small Business Administration found one out of every four businesses starts with less than $5,000. Yet, the average consulting fee is between $150 and $1,000 per hour—that’s sometimes a fifth of the budget gone before the CEO can even drink their first cup of coffee. With little capital to spare, entrepreneurs often turn to the internet for advice.
Entrepreneurs building a business plan takes a lot of hands-on research. The’ll find resources online such as Porter’s five competitive forces, BCG growth-share matrix, SWOT analysis, and brand strategy models. These structures help business leaders define their competitiveness, revenue streams, and messaging. But how do they populate them with their complex ideas and unique mission?
The good news is that, today, tools are available to assist entrepreneurs with ideation and expression. Whether it’s ChatGPT or a specific business planning platform, you can share your business idea and ask prompts such as: How can I make this more attractive for a tech-obsessed marketing manager?
Having AI as a copilot along the business planning journey means entrepreneurs can increase efficiency while validating and tweaking outcomes to meet their mission.
In a competitive market where investors are increasingly selective, driving results for your new business venture takes a lot of intelligent preparation. Whether it’s shaping your business idea, creating personas, or critiquing your business plan through the lens of your customer, make AI work for you. With AI as a copilot, you can consolidate the perfect business model that outshines competition.
Danish Ahmed is the founder of Startuptools.ai, an AI co-pilot for entrepreneurs, aiding in ideation, planning, and launching businesses effortlessly.
