Dear Founder: You're Using AI All Wrong

There’s a certain thrill to being a founder: Pushing yourself to new heights every day to bring your vision to life. Collaborating with incredible people and building something groundbreaking together. Sharing that vision with the world and watching customers use your product to solve their problems.

But that excitement can quickly fade when you're buried in endless operational tasks, from managing spreadsheets to fielding customer inquiries. The energy you have for innovation gets drained by operational overwhelm. Your attention is co-opted by an endless to-do list of archaic manual processes.

What if AI could step in to handle those repetitive tasks, freeing you to focus on scaling your business, delivering value to customers, and making your big ideas materialize?

Many of the founders we’ve talked to (dozens!) and their right hands (dozens more!) agree that they want to leverage AI in their work, and that they believe in its potential. But they struggle with where to start.

Our advice: rather than throwing AI at everything, deploy it to the right things. Read on for 3 super simple ways we’ve seen founders and operators use AI to build better, learn faster, and get more done.

1. Make Your Meetings Matter

If you can record it, AI can transcribe and summarize it. Instead of focusing your energy on diligently taking notes during that important strategy meeting or customer call, let AI do that for you — and instead, focus on being present. Let AI do the dirty work so you can ask the right questions and listen intently.

There are countless AI tools for transcription and summarization, but Plumb takes it several steps further: You can build and customize workflows for different meeting types, ensuring that the output is configured exactly how you need it.

Want a general summary that highlights key points and action items? Check. A more detailed deep-dive? Also check. With Plumb, you can send the summary wherever you want: a Notion page, a Google doc, an email.

2. Create A Content Engine That’s Consistent

Staying competitive means attracting customers, and every founder knows that these days, that means playing the content game. But who has time to create all that content from scratch? Wouldn’t you rather be focusing on helping your team build its next feature?

With AI, it’s easier than ever to create content that lands every time. Avoid blank page anxiety by prompting AI for ideas. Describe your target audience, what your goal is, and let AI generate a list of ideas for you. Refine the list by providing feedback, and within minutes you have something shareable.

Recently, our team built a workflow in Plumb that ingests voice notes and turns them into various content types for LinkedIn, X, and Threads. With a few clicks, we can turn an idea into a piece of content across three different platforms.

3. Supercharge Your Inbox

Managing email is one of the most time-consuming tasks for any founder, but AI can turn your inbox into a productivity powerhouse. Tools like Superhuman are designed to optimize email management by automatically categorizing messages, flagging critical emails, and drafting replies. Instead of manually sifting through hundreds of emails, AI can prioritize your inbox based on urgency, relevance, or sender, ensuring that critical messages rise to the top. While you're off founder-ing, AI can identify urgent emails and ping you about them in Slack or by text message.

Beyond sorting, AI can also help you maintain inbox zero without breaking a sweat. With smart reply suggestions, automated follow-ups, and email scheduling, you can handle your communication more efficiently, focusing on high-value conversations instead of losing yourself in the administrative maze of email management.

AI for Amplification

AI won’t solve every problem. But when leveraged wisely, it can save you and your team tons of time — allowing you to focus on more impactful activities like building better product experiences, refining and optimizing your growth strategy, and connecting with customers.

Adopting AI early in your startup journey can amplify your team's efforts and help you set the foundation for innovation at every stage.

The Magic of Plumb

At Plumb, we think getting the most out of AI should be a no-brainer. That’s why we created magic mode. Just tell Plumb’s AI what you want, and watch it create workflows before your eyes. We’re on a mission to make the power of AI accessible to everyone, one workflow at a time. Join us and experience the magic of effortless automation.