Airboard AI

Inspiration

The idea for Airboard was born from our own daily use and needs as multipreneurs managing retail stores, property investments, and other ventures. Every morning started with opening 10+ tabs - QuickBooks, Excel spreadsheets, Clockify, Notion, different POS systems - just to understand how our businesses were performing. We were spending more time managing our management tools than growing our businesses. The breaking point came when we realized we couldn't efficiently compare performance across ventures or get a strategic portfolio view of our empire. Existing solutions were either too rigid (forcing diverse businesses into identical templates) or too complex (requiring expensive custom development). We needed something that could adapt to any business type while giving us the strategic oversight of a holding company CEO - so we built it ourselves, not just as a product, but as the solution we desperately needed every single day.

What it does

Airboard is the ultimate business management hub designed specifically for multipreneurs who juggle multiple ventures. Whether you're managing retail stores, Airbnb properties, restaurants, or investment portfolios, Airboard centralizes everything into one intelligent dashboard. Core Features:

AI Setup Wizard - Upload any business report (daily sales, POS summaries) and our AI automatically detects and creates the right tracking fields for your specific business type Dynamic Field Architecture - Each business can track completely different metrics without complex setup Multi-Business Portfolio View - Compare performance across all ventures in real-time Team Management - Employee scheduling, time tracking, and labor cost analysis Financial Intelligence - Sales tracking, expense management, cash flow monitoring, invoicing, and debt management Partner Collaboration - Share specific businesses with partners while maintaining privacy across your portfolio Investment Analysis Tool - Upload investment documents to get AI-powered risk analysis, ROI projections, and 3-year proformas Smart Analytics - AI-driven insights that help optimize your entire business portfolio

How we built it

We started this project because we ARE multipreneurs facing these exact challenges daily. Our journey evolved through multiple iterations: Phase 1: Notion Experiments We initially tried using Notion with custom forms for metric tracking, integrating with Jibble for time management and Zapier for automation. However, Notion wasn't designed as a true database and lacked the two-way communication we needed. Phase 2: Airtable + Clockify We switched to Airtable for better data management and integrated with Clockify via n8n for time tracking. While this improved data handling, each business required extensive custom onboarding, and the integrations were limited and sub-par. Phase 3: Full Custom Solution Realizing we needed complete control over features and user experience, we built Airboard from scratch using:

Bolt.new - For rapid application development and iterative design Supabase - As our primary database with complex Row Level Security (RLS) policies n8n - For AI automation workflows and business setup wizards React + TypeScript - Frontend built with Vite, Tailwind CSS, and Zustand for state management AI Stack: Claude Sonnet 4 for intelligent analysis, LlamaParser for document processing, OpenAI ChatGPT for conversational features

Key Technical Innovation: AI Business Setup Wizard Users upload an example report (like a daily sales summary), and our AI analyzes it to automatically create the appropriate database fields and tracking metrics. This eliminates the need for complex manual setup while maintaining complete customization.

Challenges we ran into

1. Complex Multi-Tenant Architecture Building a system where businesses can have multiple users, and users can have multiple businesses, required sophisticated database design. We implemented a many-to-many relationship with granular permission controls.
2. RLS Infinite Recursion Crisis We hit a major roadblock with Supabase's Row Level Security causing infinite recursion errors that broke the entire application. We solved this by redesigning our security architecture with a hybrid approach combining database-level RLS policies with application-level security controls.
3. Performance and Caching Issues The initial version wasn't lazy loading, creating massive caching problems that slowed the app to a crawl. We completely redesigned the application architecture to implement proper lazy loading and optimized data fetching.
4. Dynamic Field Complexity Creating a system where each business could have completely different data structures while maintaining performance and data integrity required innovative database schema design and careful state management.
5. Bolt.new Optimization We discovered that Bolt.new worked exceptionally well with JSON prompting, which we leveraged to accelerate development and implement specific feature changes efficiently. ## Accomplishments that we're proud of Solved Our Own Problem - Built a solution that we use daily to manage our own multiple businesses, proving real-world value AI-Powered Simplicity - Created an intelligent setup process that eliminates the complexity typically associated with multi-business management systems Sophisticated Architecture - Designed and implemented a complex multi-tenant system with advanced security and permission controls Flexible Yet Structured - Built a platform that's infinitely customizable while remaining intuitive and easy to use Real Multipreneur Solution - Addressed the unique challenges faced by portfolio business owners that existing tools completely miss ## What we learned The Power of Iterative Development - Our journey from Notion to Airtable to custom solution taught us the importance of not settling for "good enough" when building something you use daily Database Design Complexity - Multi-tenant applications with complex relationships require careful planning and innovative security approaches AI Integration Best Practices - How to effectively combine multiple AI models (Claude, OpenAI, LlamaParser) for different use cases within a single application Performance Optimization - The critical importance of lazy loading and proper state management in data-heavy applications User-Centric Design - Building for ourselves as users led to incredibly intuitive UX decisions and feature prioritization ## What's next for Airboard AI Immediate Roadmap:

Investment Analysis Tool - Complete the AI-powered investment analyzer with document upload, risk assessment, and interactive 3-year proforma generation Advanced AI Analytics - Deeper portfolio-wide insights and optimization recommendations Marketing Suite - Content creation and social media management tools for multi-business marketing

Long-term Vision:

Transform how multipreneurs think about portfolio management Become the go-to platform for anyone managing multiple business ventures Expand AI capabilities to provide predictive analytics and strategic recommendations across entire business portfolios

The Big Vision: Transform how multipreneurs think about their businesses - from managing individual ventures to orchestrating a strategic portfolio. Make every multipreneur think and act like a sophisticated holding company CEO, backed by AI that never sleeps and always optimizes.

Built With

• bolt.new
• claude-sonnet-4
• llamaparser
• n8n
• openai-chatgpt
• react
• react-hook-form
• supabase
• tailwind-css
• typescript
• vite
• zustand