Ever find yourself diving headfirst into a new business idea, only to emerge months later wondering if there might have been an easier way to test it first?

Yeah, me too. Multiple times. Like, embarrassingly multiple times.

30+ and counting ha!

It’s taken a while to get into my thick skull but… we don't need to bet the farm on our first idea.

Instead, I've developed a framework that lets you test and build business ideas step by step, using AI tools of increasing sophistication at each level. In this Playbook I’ll walk you through how we move from stage to stage and (importantly!) know where to stop.

Solve Your Own Problems First

You know what's funny about building AI tools? Sometimes the best ones start with you just scratching your own itch.

Take me for example - I got fed up with recording videos using my phone's front camera. The quality was rubbish, even on my iPhone… whatever it is. One of the new ones but I wouldn’t be able to tell you the number if you had a gun to my head.

I wanted to be able to shoot video on my high quality webcam, via a desktop. But with the ability to record clip by clip and discard as I go. Like in Tiktok and Instagram. Those recording interfaces are SUPER powerful because of this feature (it means zero editing required) but limited to phone front camera to be able to use the interface. Annoying,

So I built myself a simple desktop recording tool that lets me use my proper camera, recording clip by clip like TikTok, but with actual decent quality.

Using AI, in a day or so.

Nothing groundbreaking, right? But here's the kicker - every time I mention this tool in passing, people's ears perk up. "Wait, you built what? Can I use that?".

That's when it hit me. What started as a personal solution (just some basic prompts and scripts) could potentially grow into a full-fledged application. Right now, it's at the simpler levels of our framework (ie. just me using it), but there's potential to take it all the way up to a proper desktop app if enough people want it.

And that's the beauty of starting with solving your own problems - you already know the pain point is real, and you can test solutions to fix it for yourself first.

Worst case scenario - you’ve made your own life better (and learned more about building with AI).

Best case scenario - you’ve built a multimillion dollar tool that people will bite your hand off to get hold of.

The Five Levels Framework

This week we’re going to run with this structure. We’re going to run one idea through a series of levels to get a feel for the framework whilst also (hopefully) building something useful!

Instead of immediately diving into full development (and the associated costs and complexities), we can start simple and scale up as needed. Each level uses AI tools in increasingly sophisticated ways, but also requires more technical knowledge and resources.

Let's use an example to make this concrete: a tool that takes news articles and turns them into viral video scripts. Perfect for creators and businesses wanting to jump on trending topics quickly (news-jacking).

This is something I personally do with my socials and it works well. Find a news article related to my niche, use AI to convert it into a script, shoot a 30 second video, post. Boom done. And with a solid chance of it taking off because its a topic in the zeitgeist.

Here's how this same idea might evolve through each level

Level 1: Basic Prompting Simple - ChatGPT conversations to transform articles into scripts. Nothing fancy - just you copy pasting the article in and running a prompt to convert to a script. You'll be surprised how far this can take you! Perfect for testing if your idea has legs.

Level 2: Projects & Canvas - Moving to structured projects in ChatGPT or Claude. Now we're creating reusable templates and processes. Think of it as your workspace - more organised, more consistent, but still straightforward.

Level 3: Custom Assistant - Using tools like Launch Lemonade to create a dedicated AI assistant. This is where your solution starts becoming something others can use. Previously we couldn’t (easily) share. And we couldn’t charge people. Now we can. It's not just prompts anymore - it's a proper tool with its own interface.

Level 4: Standalone Application - Taking it up a notch with tools like Bolt. Now we're building something that others can use without needing to understand the AI behind it. A proper application with its own interface. And we can start to deploy it in different ways - a web app, phone app, desktop app? These are becoming viable.

Level 5: Full Deployment - The complete package - building a full-scale application using development tools like Cursor or Replit. Multiple users, saved user data, full payment systems and accounts etc. It’s not a fully deployed business product/service.

To make this more “real” let's see exactly how our news-to-viral-video tool would work at each level:

• Level 1: Copy-paste an article into ChatGPT, use a prompt to transform it into a script. Manual work required each and every time, but quick to test if the output is valuable.

• Level 2: A proper Project with multiple prompts working together - one to extract key points, another to structure the script, maybe a third to add viral hooks. More systematic, still DIY.

• Level 3: A custom assistant that takes articles and outputs ready-to-use scripts. Potentially automatically pulling news stories from certain sources. Others can use it without understanding the prompts behind it - I can sell access. Starting to look like a proper tool.

• Level 4: An actual application that can pull articles for users automatically, customizs their script preferences, and get formatted outputs. Clean interface, no prompt knowledge needed.

• Level 5: A full web app with user accounts, script libraries, maybe even ability to generate videos for us. Ability to also spin off a phone application version and more if required.

The beauty of this framework? You can stop at any level. If Level 2 solves your problem perfectly, great! No need to build a whole app. But if you see potential for something bigger, you can keep climbing.

Ready to find your own idea to run through these levels?

You may already have an idea. Great - roll with it.

If not here’s a prompt to help you discover an idea to work with

You are an AI specialising in identifying focused, solvable problems. Help me discover potential AI app ideas based on my experience and industry.

Please ask me these questions one at a time and wait for my response:

1. What tasks do you repeat daily/weekly in your work or personal life that feel like they could be automated?

2. What process in your industry consistently causes frustration or delays?

3. What do people in your field often complain about having to do manually?

4. What information do you frequently need to transform from one format to another?

5. What task would you love to have an "easy button" for?

Based on my answers, suggest 5 specific, focused problems that could be solved with AI. For each problem:
- Describe it in one sentence
- Explain why it's valuable to solve
- Rate its complexity (1-5)

Still nada? For the purposes of this Playbook you want something to work with - having a project always makes learning more valuable.

Therefore if drawing blanks still grab one of the (excellent) ideas from here and run with it:

Remember, we're not trying to build the next unicorn startup here (though hey, if it happens, I want an invite to the party). We're learning how to solve real problems using a systematic approach, with AI as our tool at each level.

In Part 2, we'll take your chosen problem and start with the basics - crafting the perfect prompt and setting up an AI project. No coding required, just good old-fashioned problem-solving with AI.

Keep Prompting,

Kyle