Originally posted on LinkedIn
You don’t need to automate everything… only when the manual version is going to become repetitive. Like this WhatsApp flow I shipped today 📲
You don’t always need to run off and automate everything (even though the temptation is real 😈)
If something takes you 15 minutes, and you spend 2 hours automating it, you didn’t save time. You learned something, sure — but hey, time is money!
If you repeat the activity 4 times, it’s still not worth it. But if it’s becoming something constant, monthly, painful — go for it.
At Ignia we have info sessions every week. At first we had 15 registrants — I sent reminders by hand. Then 30… still manageable.
For today’s session I had to send 104 messages. Time to tackle this!
It took me about 4 hours between getting everything set up with WhatsApp Business API (by the way, I’m pretty sure I hate the WhatsApp API/developer experience) and building + testing the automation, and I saved myself at least 50 hours a year of doing it manually. A whole week’s worth of work back in my pocket 🍻
And it actually looks nicer and works better than doing it manually — with an image and a direct link.
If anyone wants me to share the flow (I built it in n8n), let me know in DMs or the comments. What other tedious or cool things have you automated, or wish you could? Happy to help 🙌
PS: Yes, I know I could have done it easier with Twilio or Brevo. But hey, I wanted to save the cash (I even self-host n8n).
