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AEO for startups: how to get your company mentioned in ChatGPT and other AI answers

A short plan for founders and solo marketers: what to fix first, a free prompt-tracking sheet and how to run 20 prompts by hand, how to earn your first ten third-party mentions honestly, a 12-week checklist at two hours a week, what to skip, and when to move to a tool.

  • Positioning sentence and AI-crawler site check, done in week one
  • Free prompt-tracking sheet: date, engine, prompt, named, position, sources
  • First-ten-mentions tracker with an honest outreach note
  • 12-week checklist at two hours a week
  • What-to-skip list and a graduate-to-tooling test

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The short answer

To get a startup mentioned in ChatGPT and other AI answers, write one clear sentence saying what you are and who you serve, put it on a site AI crawlers can read, track 20 buyer questions by hand each month, and earn ten honest third-party mentions in directories, review sites, communities, podcasts and comparison posts.

For founders, solo marketers and early-stage startup teams

What you will learn

  1. Chapter 1

    First things first: one sentence and a site engines can read

    • The positioning sentence comes first, because engines can only repeat a description you have made consistent.
    • Search bots and training bots are separate, so you can stay out of training without disappearing from AI search answers.
    • Check your hosting or CDN's bot settings as well as robots.txt, because a block there is invisible in the file.
    • Plain text on the page, a pricing page and a short FAQ do more for a young site than any special AI file.

  2. Chapter 2

    Measure by hand: 20 prompts and a free sheet

    • Twenty prompts on four engines, run the same way once a month, is enough to see whether anything is changing.
    • Unbranded prompts measure whether new buyers hear about you; branded prompts measure whether you are described correctly.
    • The sources column is the most useful output of the sheet, because it names the pages engines trust on your topic.
    • Keep the prompt wording, the engines and the access method fixed, or the month-to-month comparison means nothing.

  3. Chapter 3

    Your first ten third-party mentions

    • Engines look for independent evidence before recommending a company, and a young company usually has little of it.
    • Start with the domains that appeared in your own sources column, because those are pages engines already read.
    • Specific, one-to-one asks that offer facts and access earn more mentions than mass outreach.
    • Disclosure, honest review requests and community rules are not optional; shortcuts cost more than they gain.

  4. Chapter 4

    Twelve weeks at two hours a week, and what to skip

    • Three blocks of four weeks: foundations and baseline, then mentions, then measure again and decide.
    • A protected two-hour slot each week, mostly spent on mentions, is what makes the plan work.
    • Skipping llms.txt, mass content, extra engines and paid tools at the start is a deliberate choice, not a gap.
    • Wrong descriptions are fixed at their sources, not by arguing with an assistant.

  5. Chapter 5

    Reading the results, and when to graduate to tooling

    • Compare runs prompt by prompt and engine by engine, and keep branded and unbranded results apart.
    • Asking new customers how they found you is the cheapest way to tell whether AI answers bring business.
    • Move to a tool when the manual run slips, the prompt set grows past what you can run by hand, or others need the numbers.
    • Any tool should do your manual method faster and more often, with the full answers and sources visible.

5 worksheets inside

The chapters explain the method. The worksheets are what you fill in to run it: print them, or copy the tables into a document of your own.

  • W1Positioning sentence and site check
  • W2Free prompt-tracking sheet
  • W3First ten mentions tracker
  • W412-week checklist at two hours a week
  • W5Week-12 review and graduation test
Get the plan

Questions

What is AEO for startups?
Answer engine optimisation for startups is the work of getting a young company named, and described accurately, when people ask AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude the questions its product answers. For a small team it comes down to a clear positioning sentence, a site AI crawlers can read, a simple monthly measurement and a handful of honest third-party mentions.
How do I get my startup mentioned in ChatGPT?
Make sure OAI-SearchBot is not blocked in your robots.txt or by your host, state what you do and who you serve in plain text on your site, and earn mentions on the directories, review sites, communities and comparison posts that ChatGPT's answers in your category already cite. Then track 20 buyer questions each month to see whether you start appearing.
Is GEO different from AEO?
Generative engine optimisation (GEO) and answer engine optimisation (AEO) are two names for the same work: being named and cited in answers written by AI. Some people use GEO for generative assistants and AEO for answer features in search, but the actions in this plan apply to both.
Can I do AEO without paid tools?
Yes. Running 20 prompts by hand on four engines once a month, recording whether you are named and which sources are cited, is enough to start and to see change over a quarter. Paid tools become worth it when the manual run takes too long, the prompt set grows, or other people need the numbers.
How long does AEO take to work for a new company?
There is no reliable published timeline, and anyone who promises one is guessing. Changes to robots.txt can take up to about 24 hours to register for some search bots, according to OpenAI and Perplexity, but earning third-party mentions takes weeks. Measure at the start and after a quarter, and judge by your own data.
Do I need an llms.txt file to appear in AI answers?
Not to start. Google says no AI text files or special markup are needed for its AI Overviews and AI Mode. An llms.txt file is cheap to add, but a clear site, an open robots.txt and third-party mentions should come first.
What should be on an AEO checklist for a small team?
A positioning sentence used everywhere, a robots.txt and host check for AI search bots, plain-text home, about, pricing and FAQ pages, a monthly 20-prompt tracking sheet, a list of ten third-party mention targets drawn from cited sources, and a review at the end of the quarter. Worksheet 4 lays it out week by week.
Should I block GPTBot?
That is a choice about training, not visibility. OpenAI says disallowing GPTBot signals that your content should not be used to train its models, while OAI-SearchBot, a separate bot, decides whether you can appear in ChatGPT search answers. You can block one and allow the other.
Is The Founder's AEO Plan: Two Hours a Week free?
Yes. Give a first name and a work email and the download starts at once. We also email you the link, and one person from the Noma team follows up a day later; reply and say so if you would rather not hear from us.
Why do you ask for a work email?
The playbooks are written for teams at companies, and a work address tells us which company is reading, so a follow-up can be about your brand rather than generic. Personal and temporary inboxes are not accepted.
What format is it?
A PDF of 27 A4 pages, laid out to print, with worksheets you can fill in by hand or copy into a document of your own.

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Updated 20 October 2026 · Written by the Noma team · All resources