Building Your First Workflow

## What You'll Learn - The 5-step workflow building process (Trigger → Action → Test → Deploy → Monitor) - Complete walkthrough: "New Stripe Payment → Slack Notification + Google Sheet" - Step-by-step implementation with tool-agnostic principles - Common mistakes and debugging strategies (what to do when it breaks) - 5 starter workflows every founder should build first - Advanced patterns: Branching, filters, delays, webhooks - Testing strategies (never test in production!) --- ## Why This Matters (3 min read) **The Scenario:** You've spent Lesson 3.1 evaluating tools. You picked Zapier or Make. You created an account. You're staring at a blank canvas. Now what? **The Questions:** - Where do I even start? - Which app should be the trigger? - How do I connect my Stripe account? - What if the workflow breaks? - How do I know it's actually working? - Should I test with real customer data? --- **What Most Founders Do (The Wrong Way):** **Option 1: The "Wing It" Approach** *"I'll just click around and figure it out. How hard can it be?"* **Result:** You connect Stripe, add a Slack action, click "Turn On." It runs once, sends a test notification, then breaks silently. Three weeks...