Clew.

Clew is an AI workflow diagnosis tool for overwhelmed small business owner-operators — service-based businesses with 3–15 employees where the owner is the bookkeeper, the HR department, the operations manager, and the top individual contributor — all in one person. Through a structured conversational interview, Clew helps SMB owners articulate workflow problems they can't yet name, generates a current-state process map, and scores automation opportunities without requiring any consulting or technical knowledge.

The strategic wedge is the diagnosis layer. Where every other tool in the SMB automation space tries to *solve* workflow problems, Clew sits one step earlier: diagnosing and mapping the problems so they can be addressed at all. SMB owners typically cycle through Stages 1–5 of workflow trouble (notice → tolerate → improvise → seek → defer) for years across multiple broken workflows simultaneously; Clew breaks the loop by turning the messy mental model into a structured, sharable, decision-ready process map.

The MVP delivers a four-step deliverable flow: (A) Transition message ("I've got a clear picture..."), (B) Current-state process map, (C) Scored automation opportunities, (D) Prioritized first-fix recommendation including a "cost of doing nothing" calculator. Powered by Claude Sonnet 4.5 (claude-sonnet-4-20250514) chosen for conversational depth, structured output reliability, and tone fit. Comprehensive system prompt (~14,875 characters in v2) handles vague users ("everything is fine"), scope-control (no software recommendations, no legal/tax advice), and off-topic recovery.

Targeting the intersection of two markets: the SMB software market (7–9% CAGR, 2025–2035) and the global SMB IT consulting market ($400B+ by 2026) — specifically the AI-powered business process consulting niche that doesn't exist yet at SMB price points. B2B, sold directly to small business owners/operators of <50-employee businesses (sweet spot: 3–15 employees) in service-based, operations-heavy verticals.