From Founder to PM: Scaffolding a Product Mindset with AI

As a founder, you’re not *just* the visionary — you’re also the de facto Chief Product Officer until your company scales. And that role can feel overwhelming: too many ideas, too little time, and no clear path to impact.
In this practical, founder-focused session, Annette O’Neil (Infinite Chapters) will share how to use AI tools as scaffolding to build a product mindset — without drowning in process or over-engineering.
We’ll cover a simple framework: **Discover → Decide → Deliver → Iterate**
- **Discover**: Turn messy notes and customer feedback into crisp problem statements
- **Decide**: Use AI to prioritise ideas with the RICE framework and stress-test assumptions
- **Deliver**: Translate “founder-speak” into developer-ready requirements and prototypes
- **Iterate**: Summarise analytics, learn from users, and keep a “living PRD” up to date
You’ll leave with:
- A lightweight mental model for thinking like a Product Manager (without becoming one)
- Prompt recipes you can copy/paste into your favourite AI tool
- Practical ways to avoid chaos, communicate better, and make faster, clearer decisions
**No laptops required — just bring a device with internet access and a login to any LLM AI tool.**
Whether you’re running a startup or an SME, this session will help you think like a founder, act like a PM, and get AI doing the heavy lifting in between.

About the Speaker:
Annette O’Neil is co-founder of **Infinite Chapters**, a Sheffield-based product consulting studio that helps early-stage companies use AI to move faster and smarter. With a decade of product leadership experience, she specialises in guiding founders through discovery, product strategy, and execution — keeping the balance between vision and discipline.

Host or Publisher Sheffield Technology Park