It has recently come to my attention that I often find reasons to create a website. Before learning how to code, I would make a WordPress site once I had an idea for anything.

None of these ideas went anywhere, btw. Marketing is important, but that’s a topic for another day.

Earlier this week, a chat with a friend somehow led to us deciding to host an event. Not long into the discussion I thought, “Dang, I gotta create another website.”

Thankfully, within 24 hours I’d walked back from this belief and decided I could easily use Carrd or Convertkit to create a landing page. Though I’d moved away from the idea of building a site from scratch, I hadn’t figured out how to handle tickets.

There are plenty of event/ticketing platforms available, but my personal experiences with a few have been lacking. A Google search for alternatives didn’t leave me all too excited about what was available and I was trying to limit fees. And this is how I decided I should develop a way to generate and then email a ticket after a buyer makes a purchase.

No lie, that sounds fun. Eventually I came back to reality. Sites like Zapier and Make exist for a reason.

Writing code is fun and building new things is a great way to learn. I think that as a software developer, it can be easy to fall into this belief that I have to code all the time. However, recognizing when to use perfectly fine tools instead of coding is just as important.

In my case, instead of trying to reinvent online ticketing I’ve decided to use Cheddar Up after getting a recommendation from someone in DiscoLink Club. The fees seem fair and it has everything needed to allow me to focus on helping organize this event.

Now, I just have to figure out how to market this thing.