Make queries to your system from WhatsApp: When the idea is born the day before the event... 💀

How in less than 5 hours we integrated Inpla to consult data in real time and test it live at an event. Solid infrastructure = rapid scalability.

woku hosted an event on AI in Customer Experience and we used Kutamma to manage accreditation. Everything was going well until, the day before the event, we came up with a great (and suicidal) idea: What if we asked Kutamma (through Inpla) in real time who has arrived, how many accredited people there are and even filter by company or gender?

The problem: Inpla could only create and modify data, but not query. So we got together with José at Start-Up Chile's cowork for an express hacking session that started at 19:00 that day.

☕ Free coffee and code in production in less than 5 hours.

Testing on a car

At 22:00 we started testing. José took me by car to the apartment and on the way I only did one thing: test the conversation on WhatsApp.

🔹 "How many accredited are there?" → It works.
🔹 I credit more people in Kutamma, I ask again → It is still working.
🔹 "Give me the list of attendees of X company" → All good.
🔹 "How many women have arrived?" → 💡 Idea unlocked: dynamic queries.

The result was so good that we went over the road a couple of times. But it was worth it.

The big moment: testing live

The event achieved 99 credits. That's where the final idea came from: to do a live giveaway with Inpla.

But there was a problem: some adjustments had to be made.

José took his laptop out under the sun from the terrace of the W hotel, opened VS Code in white mode (💀) and in minutes made the adjustments.

We opened WhatsApp Web on a 3x2 meter screen and, with the public expectant, we carried out the raffle by consulting Kutamma through the agents of Inpla.

📽️ Then José recorded the process... SPOILER: As an audiovisual he is an excellent programmer.

Moment of truth
:⃣ 1️We asked Inpla how many accredited had → 99 exactly.
2️⃣ We asked for a random assistant → Juan Carlos de Fuente Alemana Concepción won the prize.

Inpla passed the live test. 🚀 An MVP born from the collaboration of two startups, with zero extra time and pure agile iteration.

Moral: If the infrastructure is good, scaling is fast.

This kind of thing doesn't work if the architecture is poorly done (here I must thank José, who always keeps in mind the importance of good architecture). The good thing about designing well from the start is that you can make adjustments in minutes and not weeks.

PS: Next time we will plan the ideas more than 24 hours in advance... or maybe not. 😅