In our last post, we argued that most workflow tools create more work than they save. That was the starting point for our journey. To find the real problem, we talked to dozens of prosumers: the sales leaders, marketing managers, and financial analysts who live in spreadsheets and are tasked with turning data into results.
What we learned was that most business software makes a fundamental, shared mistake. It assumes you, the user, are supposed to be the smartest one in the room, responsible for meticulously instructing a passive tool. It became clear that this approach is backward. Users don't want to be expert tool operators; they want to be expert delegators.
The Two Hires That Don't Work Out
During our research, we saw a clear pattern of frustration, which we also felt firsthand while trying to automate our own sales processes. Businesses essentially have two options, and both are flawed.
First, there’s The Intern. This is the flexible, open-ended platform that can theoretically do anything. But the learning curve is immense. We saw non-technical users get lost in a sea of abstract concepts like "nodes," "HTTP requests," and "API calls" just to do something simple. The promise of "low-code" felt like a bait-and-switch; you still had to think like a developer to manage the overwhelming overhead.
Second, there’s The Rigid Veteran. This is the specialized data tool that’s great at its one, predefined task. But our users and our own team quickly hit its limits. We found ourselves constrained by batch operation limits, strict export quotas, and an inability to handle complex, multi-step logic. It was a powerful tool, but one that operated in a silo and couldn't adapt to our specific needs.
Both of these hires failed for the same reason: they are passive tools that require a human to provide all the intelligence.
What You Actually Want: An Analyst Who Thinks
This discovery led us to our core hypothesis: what you actually want isn't a better tool, but a better analyst. What if we could build software that you delegate a business goal to, and it intelligently figures out how to achieve it?
This is the principle we're building Maybe AI on. We are focused on creating an active partner that autonomously handles the complete "acquire → analyze → act" business cycle.
- It Acquires Information: A good analyst knows where to find information, even if it’s outside the company walls. You can simply tell Maybe AI what you need: "Find AI startups that recently received Series A funding" and our system, using components like the Maybe Crawler, can get data from any website to fulfill the request. It can even merge data from multiple sources to achieve a higher success rate than any single tool.
- It Analyzes the Data: An analyst’s real value is in connecting the dots. Our Intelligent Planning Engine is being designed to understand your business intent, not just function recognition. It decomposes your goal into a logical plan, formulates a strategy, and connects the data points to find the insights.
- It Acts on the Insight: Finally, an analyst delivers a finished piece of work, not a pile of raw data. The system is being built to complete the loop, generating a full report or a prioritized list of prospects, providing a valuable business outcome directly from your initial request.
The Superpower of a Great Analyst: They Learn
A great analyst doesn't solve the same problem from scratch every time. They learn from experience. They remember what worked.
This is the most crucial part of our build. Our Workflow Solidification Mechanism is our answer to software amnesia. The idea is that when Maybe AI successfully completes a complex task, it allows you to save that entire process as a reusable, intelligent solution. One of our key design decisions right now is determining the best triggers for suggesting a workflow be saved, ensuring it's helpful without being disruptive.
Our internal tests are showing this is the right path. Once a workflow is saved, the next execution is dramatically faster. More importantly, these saved solutions evolve. They learn your preferences with each use and get smarter over time.
From a Single Analyst to an Entire Team
This journey has shifted our perspective. We realized we aren't just building a product. We are trying to enable our users to build a team. A team of dedicated, intelligent analysts that are experts in your specific business.
These saved solutions can then work together to handle even more complex requests. Your "market trend solution" can automatically feed data to your "marketing content solution". This is the future we're building, and we're committed to doing it in the open. We're moving from a world of "using AI tools" to one of "owning dedicated intelligent solutions". The insights and feedback from our first users will be critical in shaping this new reality. We hope you'll join us.
About Maybe AI
Maybe AI is a business data workflow automation platform that lets prosumers describe their data needs in natural language and automatically handles the complete "acquire → analyze → act" business cycle, with intelligent solutions that learn and evolve with each use.
Website: https://maybe.ai/
X: https://x.com/hey_maybe_ai
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