n8n for Startups: Automate Your Business in a Weekend

Why Startups Need Automation Yesterday

Every hour your team spends copy-pasting data between tools is an hour not spent on product or customers. Automation isn't a luxury — it's survival.

What Is n8n?

n8n is an open-source, self-hostable workflow automation platform. Think Zapier, but you own the infrastructure.

Feature	n8n	Zapier	Make
Self-host	Yes	No	No
Open-source	Yes	No	No
Free tier workflows	Unlimited	5	2
AI nodes built-in	Yes	Limited	Limited

Top 5 Startup Use Cases

• Lead capture → CRM: Typeform → n8n → HubSpot + Slack notification
• Invoice reminders: Schedule node → check unpaid → send email
• Social media repurposing: RSS → OpenAI summarise → Buffer
• Onboarding drip emails: Webhook → delay → SendGrid sequence
• Error alerting: Sentry webhook → filter severity → PagerDuty

Getting Started in 30 Minutes

# Self-host with Docker
docker run -it --rm --name n8n -p 5678:5678 n8nio/n8n

1. Open localhost:5678 and create your first workflow.
2. Add a Webhook trigger node.
3. Connect it to a Google Sheets node to log every submission.
4. Deploy and share the webhook URL with your form.

What's Next?

Once the basics click, explore AI-powered workflows — see our guide on building AI workflows with n8n and OpenAI.