The starting point
foundersfest had outgrown Eventbrite. They wanted custom registration flows, sponsor-specific landing pages, multi-track ticketing, and the ability to run WhatsApp campaigns to segmented attendee lists: none of which fitted neatly into an off-the-shelf event tool. The team was small and not technical, so whatever we built had to be operable without developer involvement. The biggest risk wasn't the build: it was the event itself: if the platform went down during peak registration, they'd lose attendees and sponsor credibility.
