Unlock the Hidden Power of AI: How Smart Automation Can Shatter Your Busywork Chains and Ignite Breakthrough Innovation Today
Ever wondered how some entrepreneurs seem to have endless hours in their day to create, build, and experiment — while the rest of us are stuck juggling a million little tasks? I’ll let you in on a secret: It’s not magic. It’s a mindset — a tinkerer’s mindset — and lately, artificial intelligence has become the ultimate sidekick in making that mindset work even better.
I’ve always been that person who can’t help but fiddle, tweak, and mess around with ideas until something clicks. Truth be told, if I didn’t have that itch to experiment, there’s almost no chance I’d have ended up an entrepreneur. Back in college, when I launched my very first product, profit wasn’t the priority. It was about solving a problem and just seeing what I could bring to the table. Not everything clicked perfectly — far from it — but that’s part of the charm. Tinkering isn’t about always hitting bullseye; it’s about putting yourself out there, learning, adjusting, and trying again. Business growth hasn’t dimmed that urge; if anything, it’s fueled it.
What’s even more exciting? AI’s rapid gains have taken what once felt like slow, painstaking trial and error and turbocharged it. The leap from “What if?” to “Let’s find out” has never been shorter.
Here’s why experimentation should be non-negotiable for founders: Great products don’t just magically appear; they’re shaped through ongoing iterations — trial, error, honest feedback, and a whole lot of tweaking. When I founded Jotform, my goal wasn’t to build a company. It was to solve a problem — plain and simple. That led to us calling ourselves, “The Easiest Form Builder,” because I was obsessed with making it effortless. I kept testing, refining, and pushing until the product felt easy and intuitive. I advise the founders I mentor to skip the “perfect” trap — just get your idea in front of people. Their reactions will sketch the map of what to fix, fuel, or dump.
I also follow what I call the 50/50 rule: dedicate half your time to product development and the other half to growth strategies. You’re effectively experimenting on two fronts — what you build and how you deliver it. That dance needs trial and error, no doubt.
Now, about AI being the tinkerer’s dream — here’s the rub: tinkering flourishes only in a relaxed, uninterrupted zone, which has historically been tough to carve out. Honestly, early mornings and late nights were my sacred hours to noodle on ideas, free from work distractions. But those times can be rare gems. The breakthrough? Today’s AI tools can handle the tedious, mind-numbing chores like debugging code, designing interfaces, or drafting copy — tasks that used to eat up those precious hours. Want to whip up a landing page, translate it, and generate catchy headlines? That used to take days… now it might take you 30 minutes. That efficiency? It’s a genuine breakthrough. Suddenly, the friction between having an idea and bringing it to life almost disappears.
But let me be clear — AI doesn’t replace your creativity or ingenuity. Not today, anyway. What it does is bulldoze the bottlenecks that stall your best work. After returning from a long family break, I realized I couldn’t go back to spinning too many plates at once. So, I narrowed my scope, focusing on projects I actually enjoy — like designing our new office with the architect — something I never had bandwidth for before.
And AI? It’s taken the grunt work off my plate. My email filtering process, already solid, became a powerhouse with an AI agent sorting and sometimes replying to routine emails. Less time drowning in my inbox, more time on what really matters.
My aim isn’t to have AI make strategic calls or design my workspace windows — that’s my turf. It’s to clear out the distractions, so I can dive deep into the parts of my business I’m most passionate about.
For entrepreneurs like us, AI hands back our most precious asset: time and mental space to tinker. And in my experience, that’s where the real magic starts.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
I’ve always been a tinkerer. If I weren’t, there’s almost no chance I’d be an entrepreneur.
When I released my first product in college, my goal wasn’t to make money — it was to build something for the sake of it. I saw a problem and decided to see if I could create a solution.
Turns out, I could. Not everything I’ve built has worked out the way I wanted it to, but that’s okay. The tinkerer mindset doesn’t require a 100 percent success rate. You might think that my love of experimenting would have been tempered once my business grew. But actually, I’ve only become more firm in my conviction that great things come from those who tinker.
Even better? Recent leaps in AI capabilities have only made tinkering easier. Here’s why.
Related: How to Prepare Your Small Business for the Next Wave of AI Innovation
Why experimentation is essential
If there’s one trait every founder needs, it’s a willingness to experiment. Great products aren’t born fully formed — they’re shaped by trial, error, feedback and iteration.
When I launched Jotform, I wasn’t trying to build a company. I was trying to solve a problem. That curiosity led to our first tagline, “The Easiest Form Builder.” I obsessed over usability and kept tweaking the product until it felt effortless to use. That mindset — build, test, improve — has guided every version since.
I often tell the founders I mentor: You don’t need to get it perfect, you just need to get it in front of people. The feedback you get will tell you what to fix, what to double down on and what to scrap.
My 50/50 rule — spending half your time on product and half on growth — is built on the same principle. You’re constantly experimenting on two fronts: what you’re building and how you’re getting it into users’ hands. It’s a push-pull dynamic that inherently requires trial and error.
Why AI is a tinkerer’s dream
Here’s the thing about tinkering: It doesn’t work under duress.
Today, experimentation is easier and more accessible than ever thanks to AI. In the past, it was extremely difficult to carve out the time and space to be creative, because who has several uninterrupted hours just to play around with a project that may ultimately yield nothing? For me, early mornings and late nights were the golden times for working on my startup, when I didn’t have to focus on my day job or any other obligations nagging for my attention.
For many people, those precious off-hours are still the ticket to unlocking creative thinking. But instead of wasting them on exasperating tasks like debugging code, designing a UI or writing copy from scratch, you can offload those responsibilities to an AI assistant. Want to build a landing page, translate it and generate five headline variations? That’s now a 30-minute exercise, not a full weekend.
That kind of efficiency is a game-changer. It lowers the cost of experimentation, and more importantly, it removes the friction between idea and execution. You can move straight from “what if?” to “let’s find out,” which is exactly what tinkering is all about.
Related: Why Smart Entrepreneurs Let AI Do the Heavy Business Lifting
Amplifying creativity
There’s a misconception that AI will do all the work for you. It won’t. AI, at least not yet, cannot replicate human creativity and ingenuity. What it will do is eliminate the bottlenecks that keep you from doing your best work.
Recently, I returned from an eight-month break from my business. I’d had my third child, and I wanted to take the opportunity to spend time with my family. Once back in the office, I realized I didn’t want to return to the way I’d been working before, getting pulled in several directions at once and being too stretched thin to focus on what I cared about.
Instead, I decided to dramatically limit the areas of my business I would focus on. Recently, that’s meant working with our architect to design a new office space. It’s something I enjoy, but couldn’t fully commit to previously thanks to a pileup of other distractions.
In the past, I might have had to let it go — just because I wanted to be involved didn’t mean I’d have the bandwidth to do it. It was a project that interested me, but didn’t require my participation. That’s the thing about tinkering — most of it isn’t strictly necessary.
Since I’ve returned, I’ve been able to focus on blueprints and layout concepts for uninterrupted stretches of time. How?
One reason is that I have an executive team that has been able to take over many of the day-to-day functions that previously absorbed my attention. The second is because I’ve deputized AI to take on some of my most annoying, time-consuming busywork. For example, I’ve refined my already-effective email filtering technique even further with the help of an AI agent, which autonomously sorts and in some cases, even responds to routine queries so I don’t have to. That means less time fighting the onslaught of emails, more time investing my energy where it counts.
My goal isn’t to have AI figure out window placements for me, make hiring decisions or determine the strategic direction of my company. Instead, it’s to clear my plate of the time-consuming tasks that have distracted me from what I want to do.
For entrepreneurs, AI has afforded us more of the most valuable resource we have: the space to tinker. And in my experience, that’s where everything worthwhile happens.
I’ve always been a tinkerer. If I weren’t, there’s almost no chance I’d be an entrepreneur.
When I released my first product in college, my goal wasn’t to make money — it was to build something for the sake of it. I saw a problem and decided to see if I could create a solution.
Turns out, I could. Not everything I’ve built has worked out the way I wanted it to, but that’s okay. The tinkerer mindset doesn’t require a 100 percent success rate. You might think that my love of experimenting would have been tempered once my business grew. But actually, I’ve only become more firm in my conviction that great things come from those who tinker.
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