Initial business set up - did GenAI help?

After making the decision over the weekend to start my own business as a fractional GTM executive, the reality set in. Since this experiment is to try and use GenAI wherever possible and document my experience, I've come up with a quick 3 point rating scale. 1 being GenAI was not useful and 3 being I could do it all using GenAI.

#1 - LLC or S-Corp or C-Corp? - This was the first decision. I talked to a lawyer friend to get his opinion and then used ChatGPT to ask all my follow up questions. I ended up going with an LLC. I did need my lawyer friend to get some initial bearings but once that was done, ChatGPT was like a free lawyer that I could ask endless questions to. SCORE: 2.

#2 - What should I name the LLC - Since my wife and I are doing this jointly we wanted to come up with something that represented her being an author and me working on a GenAI for GTM offering. The obvious name was Mavrik Solution LLC. Mavrik being an anagram of my name but also represents my wife's brand of writing, but that was taken. The LLC was available but the URL was taken. This was a huge setback, but here is where ChatGPT shined. I kept asking it to come up with names and the final prompt was -

"Create a fake word that has the letters in clairevikram.. but only 7 letters but sounds like a real word.

ChatGPT

Creating a fake yet plausible word from the letters in "clairevikram" with a limit of 7 letters, one might come up with "Viceral." This word resembles "visceral," implying something deeply intuitive or felt in one's inner being, but with a unique spelling twist using the given letters."

We then realized that we could have the first letters of our kids (Emil/Yanik) too and we ended up with Vyceral Solutions.

When I then asked ChatGPT what the name evoked here is what it came up with -

The combination of "Vyceral" with "Solutions" suggests a company that is innovative and forward-thinking, grounded in deep understanding and insight, yet practical and focused on delivering real-world solutions.

Anyone who knows me knows this is what I stand for. It was amazing how it captured me and my wife's essence. Plus my wife and I are so different that it takes us a lot of time to agree on something. This took us 15 mins. SCORE: 3

#3 - What is a good tag line - By now I was on a roll and this took a couple minutes. I asked it to generate a slogan and here were 5 options -

1. "From Vision to Reality: Practical Solutions, Profound Insights."
2. "Rooted in Insight, Driven by Results."
3. "Deep Understanding, Tangible Outcomes."
4. "Insights at Depth, Solutions in Action."
5. "Turning Insight into Action for Real-World Results."

The answer was obvious - Deep Understanding, Tangible Outcomes. For those that know me, I am all about the outcomes and I am all about going deep into a topic. For those that know hindi, the slang word 'Todu' stands for awesome and so I flipped it to "Tangible Outcomes <- Deep Understanding". SCORE: 3

#4 - Generate a logo - This was trickier and the one step that took a long time. Some things I realized. I am not a visual person and ChatGPT is not magic. I think if I was a visual person ChatGPT would have given me a starting point that I could easily have modified but I have 0 visual skills and I was trying to have it create the finished product. The other challenge is that while it can generate images, it has a hard time generating images with words. It just does not get the word right (for now). I tried using Dalle-E, custom GPTs etc but they all had issues. Here are some examples of amazing logos but messed up wording -

So will it replace the need for me to get a graphics artist, no, but if I knew some graphics design I could easily take this and modify it.

That being said, the last one with the half brain / half cog really did a good job representing what I am offering. GenAI + Human ingenuity. So it captured the concept. So I took the imagery and built something quick and dirty.

Overall, it took time and it was frustrating (and I am sure as I am not a graphics designer there is probably user error) but I still ended up with a free logo in a couple hours. SCORE - 2

#5 - The rest of the steps, ChatGPT was not very useful. Finding a company to register my LLC (LegalZoom or ZenBusiness), picking a company to host my domain, picking a company to host my mail service etc. Google searches were fine for this. SCORE - 1

So bottomline - I now have an LLC, domain name, LLC Name, Logo, Email address etc. all done in an afternoon. The areas that ChatGPT helped it absolutely saved me hundreds of dollars and time. If I had hired someone to come up with a name, tag line and a logo (initial idea), this would have cost me at least $1000 and probably 2 weeks of back and forth?

There are a couple other very unintended benefits. I was able to use ChatGPT to help resolve any differences my wife and I had. As it was so easy to generate new ideas, if one of us was not sold we just moved on till we found something we both liked. So as a marriage counselor - ChatGPT Score = 3

What I have learned is that if you are not an expert in a domain, you don't know what you don't know and it is hard to completely outsource to GenAI (the LLC vs S Corp decision, the logo) but areas where I was the expert (tagline, name etc.) GenAI is priceless. If you know your area of expertise, use GenAI to enhance your skills, if it is something that is not your area of expertise, find an expert and have them use GenAI.