Most people treat AI like a vending machine: insert a simple query, and receive a complete solution.

For example, we ask ChatGPT things like "How do I get more customers?" or "Create a growth strategy for my SaaS startup" and expect it to do everything for us.

Then we’re disappointed when it inevitably gives us generic responses.

This approach misses the real power of these tools. AI isn't meant to replace your thinking — it's intended to enhance it. When you provide minimal context and ask for complete solutions, you'll naturally get weak responses.

Don't get me wrong, AI is great at answering questions, but if you're just using it to outsource your Google searches, you're not using it to its full potential.

Instead, you should treat AI as a thinking partner — something that can help support your actual thought process rather than simply returning an answer.

3 Steps to Start Thinking Better with AI

So how do you move from treating ChatGPT like Google to using it as a thinking partner?

Here’s a three-step process you can follow (and how I recently applied this approach to help me create a growth strategy for Workmate):

1. Frame your objective as a process, not a question

Don't ask "How do I grow my startup?"

Break it down: "Research top growth experts, analyze their frameworks, then create a strategy for my specific situation."

By guiding the AI through your thinking process, you'll get much more structured, actionable insights.

How I applied this:

Last month, we opened up our beta to more users.

Instead of simply prompting ChatGPT for “how to get more signups for our beta product”, I wrote something a bit more specific (here’s a real excerpt from a Deep Research prompt):

Research the most prominent leaders in growth marketing (startup founders and people who lead/led growth for early stage startups).  Make sure to include Elena Verna, Brian Balfour, Julian Shapiro, Gaurav Vohra,  Lenny Rachitsky, and others.
Then make sure you do a comprehensive study into their guidance and recommendations, create a guide on how to run a growth team and run growth sprints.
I just joined as head of growth at an early stage company with a beta product and no users. I am setting this up from scratch for myself and my team of interns and consultants I work with.

ChatGPT returned a lot of great information, but it needed more context to effectively complete the task.

2. Provide rich context

The better context you give the model, the better the output.

Share your situation, constraints, and goals. Think of it like briefing a teammate — the more they know about what you're dealing with, the more helpful they can be.

How I applied this:

After my initial prompt, ChatGPT asked for some clarification.

So, I provided these specific details:

For Industry Focus, we are a product-led growth consumer, SaaS product. Well, it's more of like a B2B, call it prosumer, use case, like Calendly or Figma. So it can work for larger teams, but it's primarily focused on small teams and individuals. It's productivity software.

For company goals, the main goal right now is user acquisition... we don't have any users, and we have our internal sort of small beta testing group.

For preferred growth frameworks, I like Julian from DemandCurve, so we can incorporate his perspective as well, and YC's perspective. Assume we are starting this whole thing from scratch, and we don't have any tools in place, and for budget, we have a budget of 50k per month, and we have a very small team of myself, a couple of interns, and consultants.

For the guide, I want minimal high-level strategic. I want you to focus mostly on templates and step-by-step instructions so that I can follow it and achieve success.

After providing more context, I had a pretty decent strategy for acquiring new customers. But there were still some holes.

3. Iterate with Purpose

Don't just take the first answer and run with it.

The conversation is where the magic happens — back-and-forth dialogue that’ll help you get even closer to your end goal.

How I applied this:

ChatGPT returned a customized growth strategy that incorporated best practices from multiple experts, tailored to our specific situation, constraints, and goals.

It was good, but I needed a 90-day plan.

So I asked the following:

Please create a 90 day plan I can follow to start implementing this strategy.

As a result, it provided a step-by-step plan for me to get to work on.

Bottom Line

The real power isn't just that AI can save you time (though that's nice). It's that it lets you explore more possibilities and test more approaches than you could ever manage alone.

The people who'll win in the AI era aren't those with the smartest prompts. They're the ones who can think alongside AI — using it to expand their thinking and speed up decision-making. It's not about replacing your brain but supercharging it.

So next time you’re thinking about a problem, consider using AI to enhance your thinking to solve it.

Until next week,

David Lobo

Head of Growth, Workmate

P.S. If you know someone who could benefit from making AI their thinking partner, forward this to them.

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