Reservation system rolling out as a live pilot on the padel court in my building. Takes reservations, enforces court rules, manages waitlists, and sends WhatsApp confirmations. Real-world test of the reservation-systems service.
The problem
A single court can only hold one game at a time, so booking is the whole business. Do it on a group chat and you get double bookings, no-shows, arguments over who had the slot, and one person hogging prime time every evening. The rules people argue about, slot length, cooldowns between bookings, party size, who gets the spot when it frees up, are exactly the rules software should enforce instead of a WhatsApp admin refereeing it by hand.
What I built
- A live pilot rolling out on the padel court in my own building.
- It handles slot length, cooldowns, party size, and waitlists from day one, not as a later add-on.
- WhatsApp confirmations and reminders go out through the WhatsApp Business API.
- It doubles as the proof-of-concept for the reservation-systems service I offer.
Building it on a court I actually use means I see every edge case the moment it breaks, which is the entire reason for piloting it here first.
How it works
Next.js handles the booking flow and rule enforcement: slot lengths, cooldowns, party-size limits, and a waitlist that promotes the next person automatically when a slot opens. Confirmations and reminders are sent over the WhatsApp Business API, because WhatsApp is where the players already are. No app to download, no portal to log into.
Outcome
Built and being rolled out as a live pilot on the court in my building. It's the real-world test for the reservation service, so the goal right now is proving the rules and the waitlist hold up under actual daily use rather than reporting numbers. Once it's run a real booking cycle, the lessons feed straight into the productised version.