Ember: Hosted Craft Night Events + Experience Operator SaaS

The Idea

Launch a hosted craft evening experience business — pottery hand-building nights, candle making, macramé — at local venues (wine bars, breweries, coffee shops). Build the booking and ops software yourself for your own business, then sell that software as a $99/month SaaS to other independent experience hosts who are currently duct-taping together Eventbrite, Venmo, and Google Sheets.

The Problem You Solve

For attendees: Paint-and-sip is oversaturated and feels cheap. People want tactile, hands-on experiences that produce something real — a ceramic piece, a candle, a wall hanging — in a social, low-pressure environment.

For experience hosts (SaaS customers): The operators of pottery nights, cooking classes, escape rooms, and craft evenings have no purpose-built software. They manage bookings through Eventbrite (high fees, generic), collect payments via Venmo (no records), communicate via Instagram DMs, and track supply needs in spreadsheets. A tool that handles ticketed booking, supply quantity scaling, venue coordination, and post-event follow-up simply does not exist for this niche.

Core Features (MVP)

Phase 1 — Events business (Month 1–2):

Host 2–3 craft nights per week at partnered local venues
Hand-building pottery, candle pouring, or macramé — no kiln required for the first two
$45–$65 per ticket, 12–18 people per session
Online booking page (can start with a simple Next.js + Stripe site you build in a weekend)

Phase 2 — Ember SaaS (Month 3–6):

Ticketed event booking with capacity controls
Supply calculator: auto-scales material quantities based on headcount (e.g., 1.5 lbs clay per person)
Venue CRM: contact, fee split, blackout dates, preferred setup notes
Automated pre-event SMS reminders (Twilio) with what to wear / bring
Post-event email with photo gallery link and "next event" upsell
Waitlist management with one-click bump-to-booking
Instructor/facilitator scheduling if you expand to hiring help
Dashboard: revenue per event, per venue, per craft type

Pricing

Events business:

$55/ticket × 15 people × 3 events/week = $2,475/week gross
After materials (~$8/person), venue split (~15%), and payment fees: ~$1,700/week net
~$7,000/month net at steady state

Ember SaaS:

$99/month per operator
50 operators = $4,950/month
100 operators = $9,900/month
Target: paint-and-sip studios, independent pottery studios, cooking class businesses, candle making events, floral arrangement workshops — there are thousands of these across the US

Tech Stack

Next.js + TypeScript + Tailwind (booking pages, operator dashboard)
Supabase (events, bookings, attendee records, venue CRM)
Stripe (ticket sales, SaaS subscriptions)
Twilio (SMS reminders to attendees)
Vercel (hosting)
n8n (internal automation: post-event follow-up sequences, waitlist notifications)

How to Build MVP

Weeks 1–2:

Scout 3 local venues (wine bars, coffee shops, breweries) with a simple partnership pitch: you bring the people, they sell drinks, you split $0 on the room
Source air-dry clay, candle wax + wicks, or macramé cord and tools (all under $200 to start)
Build a simple booking page: Next.js + Stripe Checkout, Supabase for reservations
Post to local Facebook groups, Nextdoor, Instagram with a launch event

Weeks 3–4:

Run first 2–3 events, learn what actually hurts operationally (supply tracking, communication, no-shows)
Start building Ember as the solution to what you just experienced
Document everything as if you're building software for someone else from day one

Weeks 5–8:

Ember v1: booking + supply calculator + venue CRM + Twilio reminders
Reach out to 10 paint-and-sip operators and pottery studios you've found on Instagram with a personal DM: "I run craft nights, built this software for myself, want to try it free for 30 days?"
Onboard 5 beta users, iterate fast

Month 3:

Public launch with a small Product Hunt post targeting the "experience business operator" niche
Convert beta users to paying

How to Get First Customers

Events (attendees):

Nextdoor, local Facebook groups, Instagram Reels of the event setup
Partner with local breweries — they market to their own audience in exchange for the venue
Groupon for initial demand spike, then move buyers off-platform

Ember SaaS (operators):

Instagram DMs to paint-and-sip studios, pottery studios, cooking class businesses — they're all public accounts complaining about ops
Facebook groups for small experience business owners
"I built this for my own craft night business" story on Indie Hackers and Twitter/X — operator-founders trust other operators
SEO content: "how to run a paint and sip business", "craft night booking software"

Revenue Math

Month 3: Events running at $5,000/month net + 10 SaaS customers at $99 = $5,990/month Month 6: Events at $7,000/month + 40 SaaS customers = $10,960/month Month 12: Events at $8,000/month (2 locations or hired instructor) + 100 SaaS customers = $17,900/month

The events business is the unfair advantage — you're not just building software, you're living it. Every operational problem you solve for yourself is a feature your SaaS customers will pay for.

Why This Is Different

Every other craft event software (Eventbrite, Acuity, Mindbody) is built for generic classes, not specifically for timed, supply-intensive craft experiences. None of them have a supply calculator that scales with headcount, venue CRM with split-tracking, or post-event photo delivery automation. None were built by someone who actually runs these events.

The experience business itself is also defensible locally: once you own the venue relationships and have a local brand, competitors can't just show up.

Path to Quitting Day Job

3 months: $6K/month (events alone covers a meaningful portion of living expenses)
6 months: $10K/month combined — viable part-time path
12 months: $18K+/month — replaces a senior engineering salary with the SaaS component still growing

Unlike pure SaaS, you have cash flow from day one. The events pay your bills while the SaaS compounds. You can hire an instructor to run the events and shift fully to software.

Risks & Mitigations

Risk: Events are time-intensive and not fully passive. Mitigation: Hire a part-time instructor/facilitator once you have $3K+/month events revenue. You become the operator, not the teacher.

Risk: SaaS market is small (niche operators). Mitigation: The niche is larger than it looks — paint-and-sip alone has 500+ independent businesses in the US. Expand to cooking classes, floral workshops, candle making studios, escape rooms (with modified feature set).

Risk: You need to source and manage physical supplies. Mitigation: Start with air-dry clay (no kiln) and candle kits. Supply cost per person is $6–10; scale orders as demand grows. Partner with a local ceramic supply shop.

Risk: Venue partners back out. Mitigation: Have 3+ venues in rotation. They want the foot traffic; you have leverage.

Why This Works for You Specifically

You know pottery — hand-building techniques, what beginners can realistically make in 2 hours, how to make it feel accessible and fun. That domain expertise is what makes the events genuinely good, not just technically functional. Most paint-and-sip competitors are run by people who don't actually make things.

Your technical skills mean you can build the booking software in a weekend instead of paying $300/month for something generic. Your n8n + Twilio + Stripe fluency maps directly to the automation layer that makes the operations smooth.

And critically: you'll be the first software vendor in this space who actually runs the business the software is built for. That story sells itself.

First Action

This weekend: identify 3 local venues (wine bar, brewery, coffee shop) and send a one-paragraph pitch via Instagram DM or email. Simultaneously, spend 4 hours building a dead-simple Next.js booking page with Stripe Checkout for a single event. Post it on Nextdoor and one local Facebook group. See if 10 people buy a $55 ticket before you've bought a single pound of clay.