Turning data into answers for every business

From custom software to AI-powered insights, SyncHub founder Ben Liebert has built a platform that breaks down data silos for SMEs – making business intelligence faster, easier, and more accessible than ever.

When Ben Liebert talks about his entrepreneurial journey, you get the sense of someone who has spent decades building the foundations for the company he leads today. The CEO of SyncHub, a New Zealand–founded data-extraction and analytics platform, began his career in software more than 20 years ago with his first company, Blackball Software.

“Blackball was all about building bespoke systems for clients,” says Ben. “Over time, we moved from desktop to mobile, then into the web and cloud era. Increasingly, we found ourselves working on complex, data-heavy integrations. We’d build a SaaS platform for a client, and then they’d need to connect it with Xero, HubSpot, Pipedrive or another system. That’s when the penny dropped.”

By 2019, he was fielding a stream of requests from clients who wanted their business data to flow easily into tools like Power BI or Excel, but the cost of bespoke integration was a barrier. “We’d quote $30,000 for an integration, and nobody wanted to make that kind of commitment,” he says. 

“We already had the cloud connectors and the know-how, so I took a week off work and built the first version of SyncHub. Within days, we had paying customers and, for the first time, monthly recurring revenue. That first $300 we earned was the sweetest $300 I’d ever made.”

From developer to data entrepreneur

For several years, Ben ran Blackball and SyncHub side-by-side. But eventually, the pull of SyncHub became impossible to ignore. “Financially, it was a no-brainer. Custom software development was becoming increasingly squeezed by the rise of AI tools, and at the same time SyncHub was growing fast. The hard part was personal. I’d built long-term relationships with clients at Blackball, and stepping away felt like breaking up with old friends.”

By early 2023, he had transitioned fully to SyncHub, handing long-standing clients to trusted developers. “After 20 years of building systems for other people, I wanted to give my own product the best shot I could.”

At its heart, SyncHub solves a problem faced by almost every SME: Siloed data. 

Businesses run on a stack of specialist cloud services; Xero for accounting, HubSpot for CRM, Pipedrive for sales, BigCommerce for e-commerce. Each platform works well on its own, but the data doesn’t talk to each other.

“SyncHub runs in the background and pulls that data into a clean relational database. From there, you can build reports, query across platforms, and see your business in one place. It keeps everything up-to-date automatically, so the insights you’re working with are always current.”

Originally designed for BI analysts and SQL experts, SyncHub is now embracing a much wider audience thanks to AI.

Democratising information with AI

“Back in 2019 we democratised data, making it accessible to more people. But you still needed technical skills to make sense of it. Now, with AI, we’re democratising information itself. Anyone can turn that data into answers.”

The company has spent years annotating data models across dozens of cloud services. This means their AI doesn’t just see raw data, it understands the context. “If you ask, ‘Was Larry on time for work last week?’, the AI knows where to look: the employee database, the scheduling system, the site table. In 10 seconds you have an answer that used to take 10 minutes and a specialist data analyst – something that most SMEs can’t afford.  Furthermore, because SyncHub pre-stages your data in a relational database, we’re able to report across your entire business history without the throttling or download limitations imposed by alternative MCP or API-based approaches.”

For SMEs, this changes the game. Business owners can now ask quick, one-off questions: “How many customers who bought product X also bought product Y?”, and get answers instantly. Or they can set up the AI to act like a virtual operations executive, scanning their systems nightly for anomalies, churn rates, or missed invoices, and sending a summary report at a specific time.

“The potential is massive,” says Ben. “It’s like having a colleague who never sleeps, always asking questions you might never have thought of yourself.”

Ben acknowledges that many SME owners find AI intimidating. His advice is simple: treat AI as a partner, not an oracle. “It’s not an all-knowing entity. You wouldn’t hire a new staff member, sit them at a desk, and leave them unsupervised. You’d onboard them, explain your business, and check their work. That’s exactly how you should approach AI.”

For SMEs just beginning to experiment, he encourages hands-on exploration. 

“Everybody should be playing with AI. The real value comes from adding context, your data, your goals, your processes. That’s when it becomes truly powerful.”

Like many working at the frontier of AI, Ben is realistic about both the opportunities and risks.  “Anyone can slap an LLM on their product now. The real innovation is in the tooling and context you wrap around it. That’s where SyncHub is focused, making AI not just powerful, but practical for business owners.” 

Connecting your business takes just two minutes – grab a free trial at www.synchub.io.