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Bonsai

PM
Velocity5.0

Bonsai shipped an AI connector that can invoice before it shipped a public API.

mcpcrmapie-signatureemail-syncsmb-suite
◆Current state
Bonsai is filling in the parts of a business-management suite that its freelance-tools origins left thin. The CRM got a looser data model — clients and contacts can exist independently, and one contact can belong to several companies — then a Company Activity tab pulling projects, deals, invoices, proposals, contracts and notes into one feed, then Gmail and Microsoft sync so mail and calendar events land against the right contact automatically. Documents replaced separate proposals and contracts with one flexible doc carrying signatures, pricing and terms through a drag-and-drop editor. An MCP connector and, most recently, a public API round it out.
◆Where it's heading
The ordering here is the interesting part: the MCP connector shipped in June, six weeks before the general-purpose API. Bonsai built the conversational entry point first — ask what is in the pipeline, then draft an invoice or log a project without leaving the chat — and generalized to a developer API afterward. That is the reverse of the usual sequence, and it suggests the target customer is a solo operator or small firm that will talk to an assistant rather than one that will write an integration. Everything else this quarter serves the same end: consolidating scattered client context into one record an assistant can actually answer from.
◆Prediction
With both a chat surface and an API now in place, the gap is depth of what each can reach — the CRM, activity feed and Documents are recent enough that exposing them through those surfaces is the natural follow-on. The entries do not indicate whether the API launches with write access comparable to the MCP connector's.

◆Recent moves

  1. 8d ago

    Bonsai API

    A public API arrives, letting customers build custom integrations and workflows against Bonsai. Notable mostly for its timing — it lands six weeks after the MCP connector, generalizing an access surface the AI integration already opened.

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  2. 11d ago

    Sync your email and calendar

    Gmail and Microsoft accounts now sync mail and calendar events onto the matching contact or company, adding unknown contacts automatically. It continues the consolidation push — every client interaction landing on one record rather than in a mailbox.

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  3. 15d ago

    Introducing Bonsai Documents

    Documents folds proposals and contracts into a single flexible doc with signatures, initials, pricing and terms, built through a drag-and-drop block editor. A rebuild of an area Bonsai already covered rather than a new capability.

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  4. 1mo ago

    Bonsai MCP Connector

    ⚡ SPARK

    The MCP connector opens Bonsai to Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini with both read and write access — asking what is in the pipeline, then drafting the invoice from the same conversation. It arrived before the public API, making chat the first external interface Bonsai supported.

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  5. 1mo ago

    Company Activity feed

    A Company Activity tab pulls projects, deals, invoices, proposals, contracts, contact activity and notes into one searchable feed. Consolidation groundwork — the same unified record the MCP connector later needs to answer from.

    View source ↗
  6. 3mo ago

    A more flexible CRM

    The CRM data model loosens: clients need only a company name, contacts can exist standalone, and one contact can be linked to several clients. Unglamorous but foundational, since the rigid one-contact-one-client shape blocked the lead and referral workflows the rest of this arc assumes.

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