Building AI Wrappers

Rapidly prototyping AI wrappers to help with startup idea validation

Welcome to all my new subscribers - thank you for tuning in!

I plan to change things up a bit in this post and have some fun with rapid prototyping. I will build a couple of AI wrapper web apps over the next 2 weeks to demonstrate the value of AI as a sparring partner for thinking through startup ideas. Instead of publishing separate posts for each demo, I will continuously update this post. You can follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn to see the latest demos as they are released. I have already completed the first prototype: Lean Canvas AI

This list may change, but I intend to build the following apps:

• ✅ Lean Canvas Generator - [Live] Link to try it out | Link to a demo video | ProductHunt Launch | Hackernews

• ✅ Office Hours - [Live] Link to try it out | Link to a demo video | ProductHunt Launch | Not everyone has access to a startup mentor or peer to brainstorm the next steps. What if AI could act as a critical thinker and challenge you with a guided sequence of questions and discussion?]

• ✅ Feedback Generator - [Live] Link to try it out | Link to a demo video | What if you could let the AI conduct customer feedback questionnaires based on your product or service description?

• Business Book Recommender - [Coming soon] When you are starting out with a new project, you may end up spending hours searching Google or asking people for book recommendations on the topic.

• Survey Simulator - [Coming soon] What if you could quickly get insights into key questions targeted towards your target customer to help you identify assumptions to go out and validate?

• Persona Generator - [Coming soon] Starting out with a new project, it is not always super clear what the ideal customer profile looks like. Sometimes, the decision maker and actual user are not even the same personas. Getting a rough idea early on could help you go out and validate if you really understand the target user.

• AI Idea Generator - [Coming soon] There are plenty of idea generators out there, but I did not find one that is focused on AI ideas. I am hoping this prototype will demonstrate to what extent AI will impact unexpected things.

My goal is to spend a maximum of 4 hours per application. I have a framework that makes it easy for me to re-use so that I can primarily focus on the key features/concepts. In a follow-up post, I will also share how I’m using AI as a coding assistant to help me with rapid prototyping.

It is really fun to build AI wrappers because they focus on executing one feature really well, whereas without AI it would not have been as good.

What is an AI wrapper?

In case you missed it in my previous post - an AI wrapper is a simple application that sits between the AI and the user. The wrapper fulfills a specific function to augment the AI’s ability, for example, browse online, summarize a PDF, send an email, etc. It is a common way to simplify the interface for the end user instead of using the ChatGPT chat interface directly.

For example, LampBuilder, an AI landing page generator, uses GPT 3.5 in the background to generate startup landing pages. Everything from the copy, colors, layout, icons, and illustrations is generated with a set of re-programmed prompts. This diagram explains how it works.

What is the benefit of an AI wrapper?

Using OpenAI or Bard directly is already very powerful. In most cases, you can do everything you need right in the chat, especially as more plugins are available. That being said, wrappers do have their place too. A wrapper has the following benefits:

• Create a more focused and guided experience for the user, instead of an open-ended chat.

• Less trial and error for the user to figure out how to prompt to get a specific result.

• Custom integrations make it easy to interface with third-party services, for example, displaying book covers using Amazon APIs.

• Custom visualizations for specific use cases, for example, the lean canvas layout.

Future posts

Other topics I am looking to explore in the coming weeks:

• Role Of AI in Recruiting

• AI Personal Assistant For Founders

• What To Measure When Validating Startup Ideas

• A/B Testing Call To Action With AI

Let me know if you have any topic suggestions!

Great, let’s get back to the building. Keep an eye out for the demo videos and links on my Twitter and LinkedIn.