Less time keeping things moving by hand.

I’m Sam Clarkson, founder of Tendsmith. I’ve worked in recruitment management, operations and project work, where a surprising amount of the week goes on small jobs: copying details, sending reminders, finding the latest version, telling a colleague what happens next.

Each one is minor. Together they take time away from the work people were actually hired to do, and any process that relies on someone remembering every step will eventually miss one.

Tendsmith is where I put that experience, and a habit of building tools to fix it, to work for other businesses.

In one project, that meant building a tool in about 60 hours that avoided the need to hire five temporary staff. More on that below.

When UK right-to-work requirements changed, the team had six months to prepare a new process. Once it launched, 5,000 checks needed completing in the first month.

The alternative was hiring five temporary staff for six months. Instead, I built a tool in about 60 hours that avoided the need for those hires, representing an estimated 4,875 hours of manual work.

That’s the kind of problem I enjoy solving: a real deadline, repetitive work and a clear reason to improve how it gets done.

My interest in technology started with building websites and learning to code. I like finding out why something isn’t working, testing an idea and getting it to do something useful. I served in the Royal Marines from 2013 to 2019, then moved into recruitment management and operations, where I kept building tools in my own time.

That is the kind of work Tendsmith helps businesses handle.

You shouldn’t need to understand software connections or AI to get help with a task that takes too long.

We start by asking what happens today:

• What is someone doing by hand?
• How often does it happen?
• Where does information get stuck?
• Which decisions need a person?
• Would changing it make a worthwhile difference?

Sometimes the answer is automation. Sometimes a simpler change is enough.

The aim is to recommend something useful, with a clear reason for building it.

At Tendsmith, automation handles routine enquiry correspondence, follow-ups and the steps towards booking a discovery call.

A person takes over for the call to ask questions, understand the business and discuss what is worth doing.

It is one working example of the approach we offer: connect the routine administration and keep people involved where their judgment matters.

We look at the software your team already uses before recommending a build.

We check what can be connected, whether your subscriptions support it and what the ongoing costs would be.

AI is one option, rather than a requirement. Many tasks work best with straightforward rules. Where AI helps interpret or prepare information, we agree the checks and review needed.