New Mexico startups speed product development with Arrowhead Center's GenAI Sprint

GenAI Sprint helps startups speed product development at NMSU's Arrowhead Center

The Hunt Center for Entrepreneurship and the Scale Up New Mexico Program at New Mexico State University's Arrowhead Center wrapped a six-week GenAI Product Development Sprint on Sept. 16. Running from Aug. 5 to Sept. 16, the accelerator helped New Mexico and Borderplex startups apply generative AI across their product lifecycle.

Founders received hands-on training in feature prioritization, customer requirement analysis, competitive benchmarking and data-driven roadmap creation. The curriculum paired workshops with mentoring and real-time expert feedback to drive practical, in-workflow adoption.

What product leaders can borrow from the sprint

• Use AI to rank features by customer impact and effort, then pressure-test your roadmap against live feedback and data.
• Analyze customer requirements with NLP to cluster needs, extract recurring pain points and draft clear acceptance criteria.
• Automate competitive scans to monitor positioning, pricing shifts and release notes, turning findings into decision-ready briefs.
• Translate insights into a living, data-backed roadmap with explicit tradeoffs and expected outcomes.
• Streamline launch planning: generate segment-specific messaging, FAQs, enablement docs and test plans in hours, not weeks.

For teams formalizing AI adoption, see the NIST AI Risk Management Framework for responsible use practices here.

Leaders' perspective

"The GenAI Product Development Sprint helped our cohort apply AI to streamline the product lifecycle, from ideation to launch," said Carlos Murguia, director of the Hunt Center for Entrepreneurship and Scale Up NM program manager. "With AI-driven strategies in place, these startups can move faster, improve product-market fit and push innovation forward."

"Integrating AI into product development is no longer optional; it's a requirement to stay competitive," said Dana Catron, interim director and CEO of Arrowhead Center. "We're proud to see entrepreneurs adopt these tools to refine products and get to market more efficiently."

Monica Odell, CEO and co-founder of PXL8, shared the impact on execution: "As startup entrepreneurs, we wear many hats, and AI helps me work smarter. The sprint let me outsource the tasks I don't enjoy so I can focus on what I do best. My overall efficiency increased by about 25%, and I plan to grow that as my skills develop. Teams that ignore AI will fall behind those that embrace it."

How the sprint worked

Twelve startups participated in a mix of lectures, breakout sessions, live discussions and hands-on exercises. Every session emphasized direct application, so teams left with workflows, prompts and artifacts they could use immediately.

About the Hunt Center for Entrepreneurship

The Hunt Center for Entrepreneurship strengthens the regional entrepreneurial ecosystem by engaging diverse communities, improving access to early-stage investment and inspiring students to build market-ready products and services.

Get involved

For more information about the Hunt Center for Entrepreneurship or Scale Up NM, contact Carlos Murguia at cmurguia@nmsu.edu. Follow program updates on LinkedIn: Hunt Center for Entrepreneurship and Scale Up NM.

If you're building AI fluency across product roles, explore curated AI courses by job here.

Photo

Monica Odell, CEO and co-founder of PXL8, shows samples of her product innovations. Odell was part of the cohort that completed the GenAI Product Development Sprint hosted by Arrowhead Center at New Mexico State University and the Hunt Center for Entrepreneurship. (Courtesy photo)

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