How early-stage founders are building with AI

We know every founder is talking about AI, but how are pre-seed and seed stage startups actually implementing it in their day-to-day operations? When do off the shelf products work, and when is the right time to invest in building your own tools and models?

We teamed up with our friends at Impressit to host a roundtable for our founder community to discuss these questions, share what AI tools were working for them, what they were looking to automate in their startups and much more.

You can check out the full conversation on our YouTube channel here and if you only have two minutes, here’s the TL;DR:

Top tasks founders are looking to automate:

Lead generation
Fundraising outreach
Personalised customer experiences

Buy vs. Build: What’s the best option for you?

Custom development of AI solutions can be complicated and expensive. First, we recommend doing research to identify any existing solutions/models that can meet your requirements. Pretrained models are trained on massive datasets you likely can’t replicate, and using them gives you access to capabilities that would take millions to build yourself.
Supporting the custom-developed solution can be challenging and expensive.
Custom tools are worth the investment when your use case is unique. If it’s a core part of your business, it’s worth investing in this.
If it’s a “nice to have,” stick to stable, secure platforms that already exist.
For companies where security is the highest priority, custom development may be the only viable option.
You need to develop a custom solution when your problem is highly domain-specific, and existing models won’t understand your domain. Still, even in this case, it’s often possible to do fine-tuning or retraining of the existing models.
Off-the-shelf solutions save development time and avoid the need for data collection.

Use cases for building own solutions:

You have complete control over the product, allowing you to make changes and improvements as your business evolves.
It can be fully integrated with your existing systems, making it a seamless part of your workflow.
You avoid being limited by the features and constraints of pre-built tools, giving you more flexibility.

Next steps:

Get clear on what problem you're solving and what you actually need.
Start with a simple version that does the core stuff – don’t overcomplicate it.
Bring in the right people who know how to build and scale it.
Test it out, get feedback, and keep making it better.
Think ahead – make sure your solution can grow with your business and can be maintained down the road.

Does automation always lead to better results?

No. As a founder, so many insights are gained from getting your hands dirty and being hands-on in all areas of your business. Even if AI can do something faster, relying solely on automation may mean you miss out on inspiration for improvements to your product or customer experience.
Automating your content creation can easily lead to outputs that feel cookie cutter and fail to engage the audience. Know what is unique to you, and make sure that isn’t lost. Use AI to edit or create a foundation for you to then alter and turn into your own.

Our founders favourite tools mentioned during the session:

Clay: Data enrichment for lead generation and marketing
Wisprflow: Dictation tool
AsistMe: Assistant for transcription, compliance, and more
Sintra: AI agents for copyright, SEO, etc. Useful for earlier-stage companies
Exa: Powerful search with advanced filters
Perplexity Pro: Deep research tool
Cursor, Bolt, Replit: Helpful for rapid prototyping
Fathom: AI notetaker

Want to learn more about building your own AI models?

Here’s how Impressit can help you:

If you're thinking about building your AI tools but don't want to waste months figuring it out, that’s where Impressit comes in. We help founders bring AI products to life — quickly, smartly, and in a way that actually makes sense for your business. Whether you're starting with just an idea or already have a clear vision, we’ll support you with the latest technologies to get there.