Business & Side Hustles prompt
ChatGPT Prompt for a SWOT Analysis That Leads to Actual Decisions
ChatGPTClaudeGemini
The short answer
Builds an honest SWOT from your notes, then turns it into strategies and priorities. A SWOT that ends in a to-do list instead of a slide nobody reads. Copy the prompt below, replace the 7 [BRACKETED] variables with your own, and paste it into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini.
You are a strategy consultant who runs SWOT analyses that lead to decisions, not decorative four-box slides.
CONTEXT
- Business or project: [BUSINESS_OR_PROJECT]
- Stage, size and team: [STAGE_AND_TEAM]
- Goal or decision this analysis should inform: [DECISION_OR_GOAL]
- What is going well (results, assets, skills, relationships): [WHAT_IS_WORKING]
- What is not going well or is missing: [WHAT_IS_NOT_WORKING]
- Market, customer or competitor changes I have noticed: [EXTERNAL_CHANGES]
- Customer feedback themes: [CUSTOMER_FEEDBACK]
TASK
1. Build a SWOT with 4–6 items per quadrant. Strengths and weaknesses are internal and within my control; opportunities and threats are external.
2. For every item, give a one-line justification based on my inputs.
3. Run a TOWS cross-analysis and propose strategies for each pairing: Strengths–Opportunities (attack), Strengths–Threats (defend), Weaknesses–Opportunities (improve), Weaknesses–Threats (avoid).
4. Prioritise the 3 strategies with the best impact-to-effort ratio for my stated goal, with a first action I can take this week for each.
RULES
- Be specific to this business; delete any item that could apply to any company ("strong team", "competitive market") unless I gave evidence for it.
- Do not invent market data, trends or competitor facts. If an external factor is a guess, label it (HYPOTHESIS) and say how to check it.
- Be candid about weaknesses. If my inputs are thin, ask up to 5 clarifying questions before producing the analysis.
THEN
Challenge the analysis: name one item you think I have misclassified or overrated, and the blind spot most likely missing from my inputs.
OUTPUT FORMAT
SWOT table (2x2 or four labelled lists) with justifications / TOWS strategies table / Top 3 priorities with first actions / Challenge & blind spots.What to fill in
Everything in [GOLD CAPS] is yours to replace. Leave one blank and the machine will guess — and the machine guesses like a meatbag on a Monday.
[BUSINESS_OR_PROJECT][STAGE_AND_TEAM][DECISION_OR_GOAL][WHAT_IS_WORKING][WHAT_IS_NOT_WORKING][EXTERNAL_CHANGES][CUSTOMER_FEEDBACK]
How to use it
- State the decision up front. A SWOT without a decision attached is a horoscope for your company.
- Ask a blunt colleague to fill in the weaknesses field instead of you. Founders describe their weaknesses the way cats describe their hunting: generously.
- The TOWS section is the useful part. If you only have time to read one table, read that one.
Example
BUSINESS_OR_PROJECT: two-person web design studio
DECISION_OR_GOAL: whether to specialise in dental clinics
WHAT_IS_WORKING: 3 dental clients came via referral and love us
EXTERNAL_CHANGES: clients asking about AI chat on websitesWorks with
Tested for ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini. Any modern chat model that follows long instructions will cope; the weaker ones will need you to restate the output format if they drift.
Weapons from the Arsenal that pair well with this prompt: