AI for Solopreneurs

Hello, everyone joining. I've seen a bunch of people have been adding to the chat, letting me know where you are listening in from. If you want to, if you haven't yet, I'd love to know. I'm in a suburb of Chicago, so it is currently fake spring where it's warm, but probably won't stay warm. I assume by next week it'll be cold again. But would love to hear from you if you want to drop in the chat where you're from. And we will get started in just about another minute or two. Don't mind me. I'm drinking my tea as we go. Somebody from Ireland. I love that. And India, New York, South Carolina, Washington, Winnipeg, all over. We still see people joining. So if you're just now hearing my voice for the first time, go ahead and drop where you're from in the chat. All right, I'm going to give it just about another minute. I know some people click that link to join right at 11 o'clock my time. So we'll give a couple more seconds for people to connect and then I will go ahead and get started. All right, we're at about a minute after. So I'm going to go ahead and kick us off here. If you don't know me, my name is Anna Burgess Yang. As we go through this, please feel free to drop things in the chat. There's also... If you look on the side of your screen, there's a little question mark and you can click that. And that's like a Q&A section. And I will answer questions at the end. I'll check the chat as well. But if you put any questions you have in there, I'll check there first and then make sure I go back and look at the chat. And before I start sharing my presentation, I want to just drop a quick poll to kind of see where people are at. This is basically how you feel about AI today. We're talking about AI specifically for people who run a solo business. So you should see that now. And how do you feel about AI? Are you comfortable with it? Do you know you could be doing more, but using it a little bit? Are you curious, but you haven't started yet? Or are you overwhelmed by the options? And that's part of why you're here. I see a couple people. already voting that they know they could do more. And if you see that over on the side, go ahead and vote. I'm kind of curious about the people who have signed up for this session. I'll leave that up for about another minute or two. And then I'll dive into what we're going to cover today. So it looks like we've got a split between people who know they could be doing more and overwhelmed by the options. And so we're going to cover both in this session. We're going to cover overwhelmed by the options, kind of where to start. And then if you are a little bit more into using AI, what are some more advanced things that you could be doing in your business? All right, I'm going to go ahead, share my presentation. And I'm going to turn my camera off while I talk just so you don't see my face the entire time. Alrighty. Okay, so welcome to AI for solopreneurs tips, tools and ideas. As I said, my name is Anna Burgess Yang. If you don't know me, I am a freelance content marketer and journalist. I work with a lot of B2B tech companies. I am a former tech executive. I worked at a financial technology company for 15 years. And one of my roles there was product manager. So I have been in the tools space for a long time. And that's kind of been the through line in my journey. When I left that career in 2021 and started freelance content marketing, one of the things that I did right away was get my tools and systems and processes set up. And that was just before AI became a big deal that everybody started using on a regular basis. In addition to the work that I do with clients, I also provide operations advice for fellow solopreneurs, basically how you can improve what you're doing in your business. through tools, processes, technology, things like that. In the early days of AI, I remember I was really skeptical. The output, chat GPT in particular, kind of being that first to market in that chat-based tool, it needed a lot of editing, needed a lot of massaging, or it was just flat-out hallucinated. But AI tools have gotten dramatically better, and now AI is as embedded in my business as email or my project management tool. It is things that I use constantly throughout the day. So we will have time, as I mentioned, for a Q&A at the end, so you can drop those questions in that Q&A area. So if you have a question about either something specific that I cover, something I do, something in your own business that you're curious about that I did not cover, go ahead and drop that in there and I'll get to that at the end. So here's what we're going to cover today. First, why AI matters for solopreneurs in particular. There's a ton of talk out there about enterprise companies, big companies, how they're implementing AI, and that is completely different from what a solo business owner needs to do. So we're going to talk about why more than just a general AI is the future type of thing, but a very practical. Here's how it will actually change your day type of thing. Then I'm going to walk through five categories of tools that are actually useful. We're going to start with some simple things for those of you that are feeling overwhelmed and not sure where to start, and then get increasingly more involved that may need a little bit more setup or need you to provide more context in order to get good output. I'm going to show you some real examples. from my own business and how I use AI, what I use and how. And then at the end, we will go through the Q&A. This is really meant to be practical. You should leave having an idea of something you can try in your business and hopefully that you're excited to buy it. So to start, why AI matters for solopreneurs specifically. Here's the reality. You are every. role in your business. You are the CEO, the marketer, the accountant or bookkeeper, the customer support team. And because of that, there is never enough time. I have a never ending to do list of things that I'd like to get done. AI won't run your business for you, despite what some of the AI executives and leaders of AI companies would have you believe. But There's a lot of hype that suggests that it's just this magical thing that's going to transform your business. I don't want to suggest that that is the case, but it will give you time back. You can get more done in less time, which either lets you do more in your business or just enjoy the free time that you get back. It can handle tasks that drain you of energy, repetitive stuff. formatting, the I know I need to do this, but I just keep putting it off type of tasks. That's where AI really shines for solopreneurs. And as you'll see from my examples, it can even help you with problem solving, decision making. It's not going to replace your judgment, not going to make decisions for you, but can kind of help you when you feel alone and not really sure where to go next because you are running a solo business. The biggest mistakes I see solopreneurs make with AI is that they're unsure what to do, so they do nothing. You freeze because there are too many tools, too many paths to go down, and so you don't start at all, which is understandable. But the technology is not going anywhere and it is changing rapidly. So the longer you wait, the harder it's going to be to kind of catch up and get some baseline knowledge. The second is the opposite. And people try to do everything at once. You sign up for 10 tools in a weekend and you try to do everything. And the result of that is that everything works sort of well instead of really well, because you don't put the time into digging into a particular tool or task or something to make it really good. And so you don't feel like you're getting a lot of benefit, especially if it's a tool that you're paying for. And the lastly is not knowing how to effectively prompt AI to get the output you're looking for. If you open up, you know, Claude or you're in your email or anything and just say, write me an email, the result is bad. And it's not because AI is useless, it's because AI needs a lot of context. And the more specific your instructions, the better the output. But not all the tools that I'm going to cover today require prompting. Some of them just work out of the box. And so prompting is a skill you can work on developing. All right, so we're going to take a look at five different categories of tools. And as I mentioned, we're going to start with some more simple things and then get to things that are more complex. The fastest way to start using AI is to look at the tools that you already use and pay for. Most SaaS, software as a service tools, have added AI features since you originally signed up. Every company is an AI company these days, as I say. or at least they'd like to promote themselves that way. The benefit of working with a tool that you already use is you avoid the learning curve of a brand new platform. You're just turning on features inside of something you already use. So those include things like AI-powered search or chat. Maybe you have a tool that has a lot of data or anything, and you just say, and rather than creating a report or doing filters, you just kind of chat with the information and say, hey, how many deals did I close last month? Or how many transactions do I have? Something like that. AI powered email features to help you compose, sort, organize your email, those things can be really beneficial, especially if you feel overwhelmed by email. Or something like This is a specific example if you use a bookkeeping software. There's AI-powered transaction matching, which is more nuanced than, you know, kind of a rules-based system than it used to be. So those are just a few examples, but, you know, there's a vast number of tools out there. So the way to get started with this is to check the settings of any tool that you're already paying for. Look for anything labeled AI. Some companies will turn these on by default. And they will already be there. In other cases, you have to specifically opt in and say, yes, I want to try the AI features. And then you should determine if there is additional cost. Sometimes it's included. It's just part of what you're already paying for. Sometimes AI is an add-on. And in that case, if you're not sure, I would say, try it for a month. Try the additional cost for a month. See if you actually get any. benefit out of it before you commit to paying for it longer term next one ai meeting note takers this is one of those out of the box tool that i think every solopreneur should be using an ai note taker will auto join your calls record transcribe and create actions items for you gives you a searchable archive of every meeting and lets you be fully present instead of taking notes i remember in my early my career before ai note takers became a big deal i would be sitting there trying to half listen and half write things down make sure i didn't catch everything whereas a meeting note taker will make sure that you get everything usually emails you right after the call gives you a list of things to follow up on and then if you're ever not sure or need to double check you can look at the transcript a couple tools otter is a common one fireflies Fathom. There are tons of them on the market. They all do the same base things and then have a couple different features. It depends on what you're looking for. One tip, something I do, is I include a disclosure with every calendar invite when someone schedules through my Calendly. It says, I use an AI notetaker to record and transcribe meetings. If you would prefer the meeting not be recorded, please discuss with me in advance. That way it's respectful. of the attendee if they don't want the meeting recorded for some reason. Because mine auto joins, I have to make a decision to turn it off. And so if I know the attendee doesn't want it recorded, I can just do that in advance. Next one is AI tools or AI for standard operating procedures. And I think that a lot of people running solo businesses skip standard operating procedures or SOPs entirely. They think, I'm the only person, so why do I need to document my processes? Even if you work alone right now, you might eventually bring on help, like a virtual assistant, a subcontractor, somebody to work on a specialist for a particular project. The problem with writing step-by-step instructions is that it's really tedious. You could just record a quick video. But depending on who you're working with, it might be better for that person to also have a written form of what you're doing. And that's where AI can help by solving this problem. These tools start by recording your screen as you complete a task, and then they automatically generate written documentation. Documentation includes screenshots, step-by-step instructions. So you walk through the process once. And then the tool does the rest. So you can share it with a contractor, somebody you're working with, or just store it for yourself. They help you remember the processes you only do occasionally. Like, let's say you have something you only do once a quarter, and you can never remember the steps. If you generate your own SOP using AI, then you have a reference. Like, that's what I need to do to set this up. I have tons of SOPs created and stored on my Google Drive so that it's an easy, quick reference if I need it. A few tools, Scribe, Loom, specifically Loom AI, and then there's another one called Tango. These tools are eerily good. Like the output, a lot of times you'll only maybe need to make a few small tweaks, if anything. And then you have documentation for your business. The next one is AI knowledge systems. So if you're like me, you accumulate just a mountain of material over time. You have proposals, you have client emails, blog drafts, research, notes, random ideas, and it's buried in your Google folders or notebooks. It's all over the place. So a knowledge system is like a searchable second brain for your notes. Everything's stored in one place. And if you add AI into the mix, you can actually chat with your own content instead of digging through folders. If you're using something like storing everything in Google Drive, you can use Google's built-in Gemini for that kind of thing. But a lot of people have this information. scattered all over the place. And there are specific knowledge tools that are built for this. They're built for, you know, saving clips from the web and having information from multiple sources. So you can think of it like a personal research assistant that just can comb through everything, every resource you have, everything you've saved and everything you've written. A couple tools here. Google has a product called Notebook LM. It's really good. You can attach files from your Google Drive. You can attach really large files. Like if you work with a bunch of big PDFs, it can kind of search through that and you can chat with the results. If you use Notion, Notion has AI. You can kind of chat with your Notion notes. There's a product called Obsidian, which is a personal knowledge management system, and also Tana. It has a lot of AI features. Obsidian, in particular, works with Clawed Cowork, if you're familiar with Cowork at all. I have not tried that, but I am quite fascinated by that possibility and might be looking into it further. And then we have AI as a business coach. And I put coach in parentheses because it's not necessarily a replacement for a human type of coach. One of the hardest parts of working solo is not having colleagues to bounce ideas off of. You make decisions about pricing, clients, marketing, strategy without a gut check from anyone else. And so AI chatbots can serve as kind of an on-demand sounding board. I think of mine as like a sparring partner. It's useful for thinking through options, weighing trade-offs of doing something. asking questions like, what if I do this? What if I do this? And kind of can push you forward or help you get unstuck. The more context you give, the better the output. So something like help me think through my pricing strategy isn't enough. You have to provide a lot of background about who you are, the clients you serve, why you're thinking about changing your pricing, factors that impact the decision, et cetera. But AI is not going to replace your judgment. It can't understand the full nuance of your relationships, your business. But I find that responding to questions helps me clarify my own thinking about what I want to do, even if the answer is, no, Claude, you're wrong. When I do this type of thing, I have, you know, Claude will say, what do you think about that? And I'll say, well, that won't work or okay, that will work. And I am making that mental decision as I'm working through it. Claude, Gemini, OpenAI, ChatGPT, all of these tools let you create projects. In Gemini, they're called gems. And that way you can give that context to your, you know, quote unquote business coach. set up a project, give it information about your business, brand information, like any taglines you use about me, your background or your LinkedIn profile, etc. A voice and tone guide. I actually created a voice and tone guide. I had ChatGPT create this for me. I refined it and I gave it to Claude and I refined it some more. Initially, ChatGPT looked at my website. my blog identified what makes me, me. How do I talk compared to how other people write? And if you're using AI for things like email sequences or brainstorming social media posts, you need a voice and tone guide for reference. I still believe that AI requires a lot of editing of the output, but it will require less editing if you have a good starting point. Give it information about your goals. What do you want with your business? In what time frame do you want to achieve that? And then any information about your timeline, budget, like let's say you ask the chatbot to help you research something, you've got to give it like an amount that you're willing to pay. Your first conversations might be generic, but as you add more project files and refine your instructions, it gets a lot better. Each of these tools has project instructions, which basically is you guiding it in what type of output you're looking for. And at first, you may not know. You might just write something like, help me write email sequences, and that's it. But then after some back and forth, ask the chatbot to help you write better project instructions based on your interactions. Those project instructions and project files are referenced in every conversation, so you want them to be as robust as possible. When the instructions improve over time, you'll figure out what you actually need from the output. So here's how I use AI in my business. Daily and weekly, I'm using Airtable AI, which is a tool I was already using for years, already paying for. It added some AI and it... I don't have to do as much manual work because Airtable AI does it for me. My Media Notetaker is Fireflies. For me, it integrates with Zapier, which I use a lot. And so having that integration makes other things easier, like follow-ups. For standard operating procedures, I use both Loom AI and Scribe. I use Loom AI for internal procedures and Scribe for tutorials that I put on my website. I also have AI embedded in my Zapier workflows. So Zapier does a lot of background automation, like between different tools, and I can actually put AI in there. So for example, something like if I publish a new blog post, Zapier picks up on that AI generates some drafts of social posts, which then go to my social media scheduling tool. I edit from there and then I schedule. So that's something additional that just, it's now become part of my process. All of these things are just running in the background and I don't have to think about them anymore because they're such a natural extension of the work I was already doing. I also, in Claude, I have projects. So I have one for business planning. That's my business coach working through a decision. I have another one that starts with an idea that I have for a blog and turns it into an outline based on some specific instructions I have about the format that I want. I can create project launch plans, like if I'm releasing something new, kind of thinking through everything that needs to happen and in what time frame. Claude, co-work. is something I've used a few times. It's a newer feature that lets Claude work on tasks in the background. It's very different, more advanced. It can do things like clean up your downloads folder and organize everything. I'd recommend going to YouTube to learn more about this and Claude code, which is how I do vibe coding. We'll talk about that in a sec. So for Claude, my business project, for example, I have lengthy instructions, I have Google Docs attached, many, many more than what you can see here. I've probably got about 20 documents attached with business information and examples. And that's how I'm able to get the output that I want in a project. You can do that with any AI tool, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, they all work the same with attaching resources. Something newer that I'm doing also is vibe coding. If you're not familiar with vibe coding, it's basically coding for non-coding people. I don't have, I'm not a developer. I don't have a coding background, but I can use natural language to do something like create a website. It can match your brand, build tools for you to use or for you to use with clients. You can even embed signups in a tool. So for example, this was my website. Claude did all of this. You know, I'm not a designer, but I had an idea of what I wanted. I wanted a few animations, a few little details. I wanted a contact form. It took quite a bit of time at first to get through the learning curve of it. I'd say it took about 10 to 12 hours. But now that I've learned how to do it and know how to prompt Claude, know how to make changes, I can spin up a new page in about 30 minutes. And I think this is really powerful for solopreneurs. who maybe don't have the resources to hire an outside developer, but have a specific web-based project in mind that they want to do. If you want to get in touch with me as we kind of wrap up here before I go to the Q&A, I have a ton of free resources on products.annabeng.com, all kinds of stuff, automation, different types of tools you need for stages of your business. You can go there and download anything. I have my blog. I publish tutorials on tinkeringwithideas.io. One resource I'm going to send you after this, or a couple resources, I'm going to send you how to get started with vibe coding. I'm going to send you something to read about your first 90 days with AI, if you're really new. And I'm also going to send you this guide, 12 unique AI tools for a solo business. And it's different because it focuses on very specific. use cases like video editing or voice apps that use AI. So rather than some of these things that serve more general use cases, it dives into some pretty cool tools that I've found. Final thought before we go to the Q&A. I think and I know AI fluency is going to become this baseline skill that everybody needs to have, like using a spreadsheet or something like that. It's just going to be necessary. You don't need to master everything at once. So if you're in that feeling overwhelmed or knowing you could be doing more, pick a tool or process or something that's easy to solve, or solves the most obvious time suck in your business, which might be adding AI to an existing tool. And that way, you can kind of get comfortable with using AI in one scenario before you move on and try other things. It's when you start getting real value from one tool or one process that then you can move on to the next thing.

You're every role in your business — CEO, marketer, bookkeeper, customer support. AI won't run your business for you, but it will give you real time back. Here's how to start using it without the overwhelm.

📋 Download the guide "12 Unique AI Tools for a Solo Business": https://links.annabyang.com/youtube-ai-tools (Enter code YOUTUBE to get this guide for free)

🤖 Download the checklist “Getting Started with Vibe Coding”: https://links.annabyang.com/youtube-vibe-coding 

This is a replay of my live AI for Solopreneurs webinar, originally hosted on March 5, 2026. I walk through five categories of AI tools — from features already built into your existing software to using AI as a business sounding board — with real examples from my own business.

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TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Introduction
05:08 - Why AI matters for solopreneurs
08:35 - Biggest mistakes solopreneurs make with AI
12:05 - Category 1: AI features in tools you already use
14:29 - Category 2: AI meeting note takers
16:11 - Category 3: AI for standard operating procedures
18:40 - Category 4: AI knowledge systems
20:29 - Category 5: AI as a business "coach"
24:53 - How I use AI daily and weekly
27:35 - Vibe coding: building a website with no coding background
29:19 - Free resources + final thought


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