TuyiTek Reminders

Inspiration

Many artisans in Nigeria, such as tailors, furniture makers and mechanics, run their business from memory, notebooks and phone calls. When a customer arrives to collect their cloth, furniture or vehicle and it isn't ready, they leave unhappy and the trader loses business. Other times the work is finished but the customer forgets to come, so it sits in the shop and takes up space. I wanted a tool that fixes both problems without costing the trader anything.

What it does

TuyiTek Reminders helps small traders keep track of customer jobs and keep promises on time. Each morning it checks the trader's job list and finds which items are due. It lets the trader know which jobs need attention, and it sends each customer a personalised message when their item is ready to collect. The message includes the customer's name, the collection date and the trader's contact number. It also tracks which reminder each job has reached, so customers aren't messaged twice by mistake.

How I built it

I built the workflow in n8n, a workflow automation tool. A daily schedule trigger reads job records from Google Sheets, and a JavaScript step finds the jobs that are due and builds a personalised message for each customer. Gmail delivers the daily summary to the trader, and WhatsApp click-to-send links open each customer's message ready to send from the trader's own number. Google Sheets acts as the database, so a trader with no technical skills can manage jobs in a familiar spreadsheet.

Challenges I ran into

• Messaging costs and registration: Bulk SMS services needed a registered business and approved sender ID, and the official WhatsApp Business API needed business verification and per-message fees. Most small traders can't meet those requirements.
• Setup errors: I worked through bad URLs, wrong phone number IDs and recipient restrictions while testing the messaging services.
• Staying within a very small budget: I redesigned the delivery step around WhatsApp click-to-send links, which cost nothing and need no registration.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

• I built a working reminder system that costs nothing to run.
• It needs no business registration, paid API or special hardware, so it works for the traders who need it most.
• Messages are personalised for each customer, with their own name and collection date.
• It works from a plain Google Sheet that the trader already knows how to use.

What I learned

• Real-world constraints, like cost and registration requirements, shape a product as much as the code does.
• A simple, free solution that people can actually use beats an ideal solution they can't afford.
• Reading API errors carefully saves hours, and a workflow that says "executed" doesn't mean the message was sent.
• Building for small traders means designing around tools they already use, like WhatsApp and spreadsheets.

What's next for TuyiTek Reminders

• A simple mobile-friendly form so traders can add jobs without opening a spreadsheet.
• Message templates in English, Yoruba and Pidgin.
• Templates for other trades, such as furniture workshops, mechanics and laundries.
• Fully automatic sending once a trader can afford a verified messaging account, as an optional upgrade.
• A "mark as collected" button, so the reminders stop when the customer picks up the item.
• Moving off the n8n free trial to a permanent free home, such as self-hosting or Google Apps Script.

Built With

• gmail
• javascript
• n8n
• sheets
• wa.me