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From my first Zap to Make.com Level 5: six years of building automation that runs businesses
I started six years ago with the smallest kind of automation: a form response landing in a sheet, an invoice that sent itself, a Zap that saved someone ten minutes a day. Client by client on freelance marketplaces, those ten-minute fixes turned into a company, Nex Automations, and into 1,200+ automations running in production today for 210+ clients across 12+ countries.
Somewhere along the way I learned what automation actually is. It is not robots replacing people. It is the invoice cycle of a US transport company dropping from 30 days to 7, a 77% cut, because the paperwork now moves itself. It is a lead reaching the right salesperson in under 2 seconds instead of sitting in an inbox overnight. It is an operations team getting 15 to 20 hours back every week for the work that actually needs a human.
The tools shape the work. Zapier is where most businesses should start, fast to build and hard to break for simple links between apps. Make.com is where the serious systems live, visual scenarios with routing, iterators and real error handling. Self-hosted n8n is where I put AI agents when the data cannot leave the client's server. Knowing all three means the problem picks the tool, not the other way around.
Along the way Make certified me at Level 5, the top of their ladder, and Nex Automations became an official Silver Partner, listed in both directories:
make.com/en/partners-directory/nexautomations
zapier.com/partnerdirectory/partner/nex-automations
Every build still ships the way the first one should have: error handling, logging, alerting and documentation, because an automation only counts if it holds at 2 AM.
Happy to answer any Make or Zapier questions in the comments.🚀
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👋 I'm new to Contra and I did my first post without realizing I hadn't even introduced myself!
Hey I'm Katya, I'm an AI Systems Architect, marketer and yoga teacher.
I build AI systems that bring in business and handle the work behind it. A voice agent that calls new leads back within seconds and books the appointment. A pipeline that traced 16,900+ leads to the ads that brought them. Listing videos made from the photos a real estate agent already has.
The marketing side came first. I built the multi-channel campaign for Jay Shetty's launch (22 million followers). After that I discovered the tech world and when AI came along, I realized I'm a builder at heart and never looked back! Building is so much fun 🤍
Here's what I've shared:
My first post: on building a fully AI-made YouTube video, end to end, because I'm camera shy 🙈 https://contra.com/community/MP9mFRuT-im-building-my-first-fully-ai-made
Last thing, if you're building with AI video or automation, I'd like to see what you're working on
And if you're hiring: I may be new to Contra but definitely not new to this work. Reach out for AI agent builds, apps, websites or anything in between.
P.s The video below is my AI avatar. My profile video is the real me :)
Nice Portrait....Has everything from a great pose, great composition and lighting and perfect environment setting.
Built an n8n CRM automation system that captures leads, creates and updates CRM records, assigns tasks, sends team notifications, automates follow-ups and generates reports.
What if every new lead could be handled before you even open your inbox? ⚡
This AI-powered workflow turns a new email inquiry into a structured, ready-to-handle lead — automatically.
A new inquiry arrives → AI extracts the important details → Airtable/CRM is updated → the response goes through optional human approval → a personalized email is sent → Notion is updated → the team gets notified in Slack → performance data is collected for reporting.
The goal isn't to remove people from the process. It's to remove the repetitive work around them.
This type of workflow can be customized for B2B companies, SaaS businesses, agencies, real estate, e-commerce, recruitment, consulting, customer support, healthcare, finance, education, and other service businesses.
Already know what you want to automate? → Send me your current workflow and I’ll map out how we can automate it.
Still doing repetitive work manually? → Tell me the task that consumes your team’s time, and I’ll help identify what can be automated.
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I'd use the human approval step to capture corrections, not just a yes/no decision. If a reviewer changes the extracted lead details, does the workflow update Airtable and the reporting record before sending the email?