Supercharge your efficiency: Smart, budget-friendly AI hacks for entrepreneurs
I see artificial intelligence (AI) as more than just a tool—it’s the driving force behind my efficiency.
As a business owner, I use AI for a wide variety of tasks.
- Writing: It can draft texts in minutes—anything from emails to proposals to social media posts.
- Synthesizing information: It analyzes long documents like contracts and transcriptions, giving me the top three things that matter.
- Organizing work: AI can generate outlines, optimize processes and turn a 45-minute conversation into an action plan with owners and deadlines.
- Managing tasks: It helps me with administrative to dos such as triaging my email inbox, scheduling meetings and processing invoices.
Most importantly, none of these uses cost me a lot of money or require complex technical expertise. I can’t be the only entrepreneur who has figured this out—so, if you’re not taking advantage of AI yet, you can be sure that some of your competitors are.
Many business owners are convinced that AI is not for them. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Anyone can use AI.
Dominic Gagnon
Investor, Entrepreneur and Speaker, BDC’s Entrepreneur in residence
What AI really means for an entrepreneur
You might be wondering what all this means in tangible terms. AI helps me:
- Boost revenue: I can respond faster, so my clients get answers in minutes instead of hours. This means more people get the information they need to move forward with their purchase, which ultimately leads to more sales.
- Save money: AI helps me cut down administrative time, saving me thousands of dollars each year. If you consider the average salary for an administrative role and eliminate two hours of unnecessary work every day, the total savings can reach $25,000 annually.
- Improve competitiveness: AI raises mistakes or key points quickly that it would normally take me much longer to spot myself, if at all. This allows me to make better decisions for my business faster.
3 ways you can start using AI right now
The easiest way to get started, is by using a generative AI tool like Cohere, ChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft Copilot or Gemini. With the right prompts, any of these tools can help speed up tasks that normally take much longer. For a small fee, you can get the professional version to secure your data. Otherwise, just be sure not to input any proprietary information.
Tasks AI helps me with
| Purpose | Prompt | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Emails | Write a response to an unhappy client. Acknowledge the problem with empathy, propose a clear solution and close with a next step. Keep under five lines. |
Drafting difficult replies
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| Sales | Give me five compelling ways to position [product or service] to [specific type of customer]. Focus on the pain they want to eliminate, not the features. |
Generating new angles or positioning
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| Workflows | Read this document and give me: (1) the three key decisions I need to make, (2) the top risk and (3) the recommended next step. |
Cutting through information overload
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Just remember to be as specific as possible in your prompt and always review what the AI generates.
Some of the AI tools I use cost less than $20/month. But most of them replace what used to cost me thousands of dollars in hours.
Dominic Gagnon
Author, Investor, Entrepreneur and Speaker, BDC’s Entrepreneur in residence
Examples of AI tools I use every day
I want to give you some concrete examples of how I use AI every day. I am not endorsing specific products—I’m simply sharing the types of tools I use so you can see how AI helps me save time and boost efficiency.
AI tools I use to boost my efficiency
| AI tool | What it does | How it saves me time |
|---|---|---|
| Meeting management (e.g., Fellow*) |
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Generative AI (e.g., Cohere*, Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini) |
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Sales coaching (e.g., Gong) |
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| Email management (i.e., Missive*) |
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| Image generators (i.e., Ideogram*) |
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* Canadian-based companies
Many of these tools are readily available and cost me less than $200 per month. But they help me save more than 10 hours
What entrepreneurs often get wrong about AI
Many business owners are convinced that AI is not for them. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Anyone can use AI.
Here are the most common misconceptions I hear from entrepreneurs.
AI doesn’t work for my business or industry.
Every type of business from restaurants to manufacturers can benefit from AI. In fact, the less “tech” your industry, the bigger the opportunity.
For example, if you’re a restaurant, AI can help you build menus, manage food orders, take reservations and more. Plus, every type of business has accounting, invoicing, purchasing and other management tasks that AI can optimize.
Adopting AI is too complex to set up.
Not all AI requires an IT team or consultant. The efficiency tools I shared with you only require a credit card and a problem to solve, whether that’s managing your inbox or improving your customer service. You can be up and running with any of these types of AI tools in less than 30 minutes.
AI is too expensive.
Some of the AI tools I use cost less than $20/month. But most of them replace what used to cost me thousands of dollars in hours.
Just to be clear, there’s more than one kind of AI out there.
- The easy-to-use efficiency boosters I’ve been talking about
- The organization-level solutions that are more complex and costly to adopt
But even the robust AI solutions are an investment worth making when applied to the right process—it’s only a matter of time before you make back your investment in efficiency gains.
Start using AI now, not later
AI is changing how businesses get ahead. More companies use it every day to cut costs, save time and make better decisions quickly.
A year from now, there will be two types of business owners: those who jumped in with AI—faster and more competitive—and those who wish they had.
How to start using AI efficiency tools
Here’s my challenge for you—don’t wait. Start today.
- Choose a repetitive task you or your team do every day that takes at least 30 minutes.
- Find an AI tool that can help. Look online—lots of tools have free trials and are easy to try.
- Use the tool for two weeks, and see what happens. You might save an hour, at first. That hour can turn into five—and that gives you an edge.
If you want to explore more robust AI solutions, the approach is similar. You don’t need to be a large business or undertake a huge transformation.
Pick one repetitive end-to-end process that’s inefficient and wastes time. You might find off-the-shelf AI tools that can help. If you need to build something more custom, the money saved in efficiency gains will soon cover the cost of your initial investment.
Next step
Adopt AI, digital tools and smart equipment, work with Canadian AI companies, and get preferential-rate consulting and financing with BDC’s LIFT program.