5 AI Tools to Make Starting Any Business 5x Faster

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Sunny Israni knows how much grunt work goes into starting a business. The chief technology officer of agentic AI company Lightswitch and a four-time startup founder, Israni recalls the time-suck of doing basic tasks in the early days, such as turning pitch calls into proposals, converting proposals into decks, and assembling product photos. For startup founders launching new businesses today, however, a lot of operational tasks can be outsourced to AI.

LinkedIn research from 2025 estimates that 85 percent of small businesses are already using AI tools to enter data, write reports, and generate content, among other tasks. But even the best tools can’t replace you.   You cannot outsource your understanding to an AI agent.  You have to go in here with the spirit of collaboration with AI. That is how you really get far.

Israni’s first tip for entrepreneurs choosing their own AI tools is using a simple spreadsheet or list to keep track of which ones they’re currently using and how. With new tools being released nearly every day, revisiting that list will ensure every tool earns its place.  The real promise of AI is amplification—being able to have a much bigger footprint than was originally possible. Here are five AI tools he recommends.

Fathom.  Any entrepreneur will take a lot of meetings in the early days, so a meeting recorder like Fathom is critical to help you keep track. While Fathom could be prefers for its simple integrations with other software, Granola or even Google’s free Gemini notetaker can also be used.

Claude Cowork.  Claude’s research assistant can do anything from opening up your browser and Googling on your behalf to filling out a spreadsheet.  Claude Cowork is like having an analyst right next to you who’s extremely skilled.

Lovable.  To quickly build simple websites.   Any non-technical person can just go in and spin up a beautiful landing page.  Claude Code and Cursor are more powerful but a simple, cloud-based option such as Lovable, Bolt, or Replit is ideal for anyone who needs a high-quality website up quickly.

Gamma.  For entrepreneurs who spend a lot of time making decks and presentations, Gamma can save hours.

N8n.  For more advanced users who are familiar with other AI tools, n8n can automate entire workflows. For instance, users can build a workflow in n8n to search the internet for a niche topic. The user simply tells n8n to find all the latest content that has been released in the past two days, summarize it, digest it, and send an email with that digest.  Or, you could automate the workflow described above, asking n8n to take the steps from introductory call to pitch deck on its own.

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