Webhooks: The Easiest Automation Concept You’re Probably Avoiding

When I first heard about webhooks, they honestly felt more intimidating than APIs. APIs already seemed complex enough, and then people told me: “Now you need to learn webhooks.” My reaction? 😅 Total overwhelm.

But after digging in, I realized something surprising: webhooks are actually simpler than APIs.

👉 With an API, you send data out. 👉 With a webhook, you just wait for data to come in.

That’s the big difference.

My First Webhook in n8n

To test it out, I built a simple workflow in n8n. Here’s what happened:

I copied the webhook URL n8n gave me.

I opened Postman and sent a POST request with body: {"text": "hello"}.

At first, I got a 404 error because my workflow wasn’t listening.

Then I clicked “Listen for Test Event” in n8n → tried again → boom, it worked!

I could see the text "hello" show up inside my workflow, along with other request details. That was my “aha!” moment.

Two Key Lessons

If you want to send a response back (not just receive data), you need to use the Respond to Webhook node.

Test URL ≠ Production URL. At first, I kept sending data to the test link. Nothing happened until I activated the workflow and switched to the production URL.

The Restaurant Analogy

Here’s the way I think about it now:

An API request is like you (the customer) sending an order to the kitchen.

A webhook is the kitchen waiting for that order, cooking the food, and sending it back.

Once I understood that, everything made sense.

“If you’d like the workflow , JSON and templates , I’ve posted them in my Free Skool community — search ‘AI University’ on Skool or message me for access.”