Heyyo - how are you doing? First of all, happy 2025. You must be sobering up just now.

Let me start with a quick question. Somebody tell me who this car belongs to:

It was parked just outside the train station while me and all the peasants were commuting from the train to the office.

Speaking of peasants - been hard at work in the new year but mostly dealing with "The Struggle".

If you don't know what it is - read. I recommend the whole book as well.

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The struggle is excruciating.

In my case, it stems from one big tension: What is next?

We are getting more inbound demand than we ever have. Yet each customer is still a boulder up the hill to convert. Then to educate. Things have to get magical - simpler.

Most benefits resonate today. There are vow moments in our demos. Genuine ones. Yet I can't keep myself from thinking that something is missing. Something more magical. Something simpler - and contrarian.

What is it?

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While I think about this - I don't code, I don't design, I don't read. I think. A lot.

I am looking into the next building in Waterloo and just letting my mind loose. Wander.

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So I came up with a framework to think about these things.

1. Simple products

1. Example: Perplexity.

1. You build something simple. Easily digestable. Instant feedback.

1. You do not invent a category (most of the time).

Before Perplexity, I heard noone come up and say:

"Man Google sucks hard. So many ads, so many bad results..."

Well it is damn Google. Why would you complain? I still use it everyday.

Yet Perplexity came along. Hit millions of users with $30-40 MM ARR. Here is what they did not do:

• Perplexity did not invent a better search algorithm.

• Perplexity did not build an extension to Google

• Perplexity did not invent a new category of search or even different results.

• Hell they even just integrated advertisements (which is arguably the most hated feature on Google)

• 
  

They simply took an existing need (search), but on a different interface.

2. Contrarian delivery

Perplexity did not provide a bunch of links and then used AI to summarise them.

It simply summarised all results in one big chat response.

This comes as obvious today - however when you think about it pre 2024, this kind of a user experience solution would not come across as obvious.

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Here is one theme:

I build AI workflows and experiments everyday. I know that a lot of our customers want to build it too.

My desire is in enabling anyone to create any automation they want - in natural language. This is much harder than it looks though - mainly due to necessity of integrations.

However I might be also on the verge of the big trap: Building something no one wants.

This is where all live and die, isn't it? One one hand, you listen to your customers and build what they want.

One the other hand comes Henry Ford and Jobs - if I asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me to build a faster horse.

Both correct and both false.

This is the struggle.

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So why am I telling you all of this?

Well - I am asking you. Tell me what do you need? What automation would be amazing for you?

I promise - we will build it.