Booking software for UK event suppliers. Turn any enquiry — a DM, a referral, a repeat client — into a priced proposal, a signed contract and a deposit in your account. No lead fees, ever. Free to start, or £29/month with no platform fee.

How did Astra change the scope or ambition of what you built?

Astra changed the ambition from building an event marketplace to building an operating system for event businesses. The original concept was primarily about connecting organisers with suppliers. With Astra, I was able to expand that into the full booking lifecycle: enquiries, proposals, contracts, deposits, instalments, payments, payouts, customer management and event workspaces. The result is not simply another marketplace. Suppliers can bring customers they already have into the platform, manage the entire booking, and use the marketplace as an additional acquisition channel. The ambition became to own the workflow around the transaction, not just the introduction.

Hi all, I'm TJ. I'm a UK photographer, and a software QA engineer by trade, so I spend my days looking for where things quietly break. In my own bookings that was never the shoot. It was the stretch between a client saying yes and the deposit actually arriving. You send a price on WhatsApp and hear nothing back, so you're left guessing whether to chase or let the date go. They say yes, and three weeks later you're still chasing the deposit. They cancel with nothing in writing, and it's your word against theirs. And before any of that, I've paid a £66 to top-up credits on a lead site just to quote enquiries. So I built Build My Event for that stretch. Build My Event is where an event supplier runs their bookings, wherever the enquiry comes from: Instagram, a wedding fair, your own website or a directory. - Proposals. You send one link with your package, what's included and the date. Your client doesn't need an account to read it. - Contracts. When they accept, it becomes a contract with the same price and inclusions, and you both e-sign online. - Getting paid. Deposits and instalments are paid by card through Stripe, straight into your own bank account. Reminders go out automatically. We never hold your money. - No surprises. Our fee is fixed the moment the contract is signed. Cancellation refunds follow a sliding scale written into the contract before anyone signs. - Double-booking warnings. Every new enquiry and proposal is checked against bookings you've already taken. Second, and optional: your profile is also a bookable listing in the built in marketplace, so organisers can find you and book you directly. There are no lead fees or credits. Pricing. Free has a 6% booking fee. Pro is £29 a month with no booking fee, and comes with a 30-day trial. Stripe card processing applies on both. It's new, and I want the first suppliers on it to tell me what's wrong. What would stop you moving your next enquiry off WhatsApp? TJ

How did Astra change the scope or ambition of what you built?