Give the role a useful definition
Your AI cofounder can help organize research, explore options, draft plans, and challenge assumptions. It cannot supply real customer demand by imagining it. You remain accountable for the evidence, commitments, and decisions.
Start with the problem
Describe the person, the situation, and the workaround they use today. Ask AI to identify the assumptions in your story. Label what came from conversations or data and what is still a guess.
Plan a test before a big build
Choose a small experiment around the riskiest assumption. Write the audience, method, effort limit, and decision rule. A manual service or a simple prototype may teach you more than building a feature-rich product first.
Use the feedback to narrow the scope
Bring anonymized, permitted observations back into the discussion. Ask for competing interpretations and missing evidence. Select the next step yourself. Do not let a detailed plan disguise a lack of validation.
Make it yours
Take one idea you keep returning to. Write three assumptions and one experiment that could disprove the most important one.