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I didn’t get into systems because systems sounded interesting. Operations were breaking.
I started running a business young, and during the pandemic there wasn’t much room for processes that only looked organized.
There were customers, logistics, people, marketing, money, and problems that still needed decisions.
Later, working in aviation gave me a very different environment, but reinforced something similar:
Complexity doesn’t disappear. Good operations stop it from spreading.
And after working across founder-led businesses, agencies, SaaS, product, engineering, and operations, I keep seeing versions of the same problem.
A workflow problem can actually be an ownership problem.
A missed deadline can actually be an unresolved decision.
An automation problem can actually be a broken process being automated.
That’s why I don’t start by asking what tool we should build in.
I start with:
- What’s actually blocking execution?
- Who owns it?
- What decision is missing?
- What’s the smallest change that gets things moving again?
Then we build what the business actually needs.
Diagnose first. Build what matters.
Until the next problem,
Marilit
#BusinessOperations #SystemsThinking #OperationalStrategy #ProcessDesign
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A modern carousel design created for UpsideX Automate, focused on communicating digital automation solutions in a clear, engaging, and visually compelling way. The design combines bold typography, clean layouts, and strategic visuals to simplify complex ideas and drive audience engagement.
I didn’t create this video by simply asking AI to “make a vide. There was a process behind it.
I started with the idea and story, then broke it down into individual scenes.
From there, I worked on the visual direction, created the characters and references, and made sure the style stayed consistent across the project.
Then came the AI generation creating each shot, refining prompts, and adjusting the visuals until they matched the story.
After that, I animated the scenes, added transitions, worked on the pacing, sound, and finally brought everything together in the edit.
My workflow:
Idea → Storyboard → Visuals → Character Consistency → AI Generation → Animation → Editing → Final Polish
The tools help me move faster, but the workflow is what makes the final result work.
🚀 My First AI Automation Project with n8n
I recently built my first automation project — an AI-Powered Invoice Extraction & Tracking System.
The problem I wanted to solve was simple:
Imagine a business receiving dozens of invoices or cash memos every week. Someone has to open each file, read the information, and manually enter the vendor name, date, items, total amount, and category into a spreadsheet.
That’s repetitive, time-consuming, and easy to get wrong.
So I built a workflow where:
📂 An invoice is uploaded to Google Drive
→ 🤖 Gemini AI reads and extracts the invoice data
→ ⚙️ n8n processes and validates the information
→ 📊 The data is automatically added to Google Sheets
The best part?
No manual data entry. Just upload the invoice and the rest happens automatically.
While building it, I also worked with things like workflow triggers, loop control, API errors/retries, and handling multiple files.
For me, this project was less about simply “building an n8n workflow” and more about learning how AI + automation + data workflows can solve real business problems.
This is just my first step into AI automation, and I’m excited to build more practical systems like this.
If your business has a repetitive process that could be automated with AI, n8n, or data workflows, feel free to DM me. I’d be happy to discuss it.
#AIAutomation #n8n #Automation #ArtificialIntelligence #DataAnalytics #DataAnalyst #WorkflowAutomation #GenerativeAI #BusinessAutomation #AI
Smart pipeline! Have you added strict JSON schema validation after Gemini extracts the invoice fields? Found that it stops edge case hallucinations before the data ever hits Sheets.