The renewal nobody chased. The enquiry that went cold by Wednesday. The three people you're still waiting on documents from.
Tomtar builds you an assistant that does one of them — properly, every day, without being reminded. You describe it the way you'd explain it to someone new.
Their words, roughly. You don't have to be precise — it asks if something matters and guesses sensibly if it doesn't.
“I've got the renewal list and every month there's a batch coming up. Last week one lapsed and nobody told the client. I just need something keeping on top of it.”
Insurance broker, two staff
Watches the dates, drafts the reminders, shows you each one before it goes.
“After an open house I get all these names, and I mean to follow up, but by Wednesday it's gone. Two weeks later they've bought through somebody else.”
Estate agent, working alone
Follows up on your schedule, in your tone, and stops when someone replies.
“I should keep up with what's happening in my field and I never do. Tell me the important bits before Monday.”
Consultant
Reads around your industry each week and sends you a short brief, with sources.
About ten minutes, most of it you talking. This is a real one, word for word.
You say what you want done
However it comes out. It doesn't need tidying up.
It asks what actually matters
Two or three questions, not an interrogation. Everything else it decides sensibly.
It reads back what it will do
That last line matters. It tells you what it guessed, so you can correct it now rather than find out later.
It works, and tells you
On your phone, in your inbox, or here. Nothing has gone anywhere yet.
That's not a setting you have to find. It's how a new assistant starts, and it stays that way until you decide otherwise.
A tomte is the household spirit of a Scandinavian farm. The name comes from tomt — the plot, the homestead. He is, literally, the one who belongs to this place.
He works at night, while the house sleeps. He tends the animals and does the jobs nobody got round to. He is small, he keeps to himself, and he asks for very little — a bowl of porridge at Christmas, and to be left alone.
There is one more thing about him, and it is the part that mattered when we picked the name. The tomte has standards. He is protective of the animals. Run the farm badly, treat them poorly, ask him to be part of something shabby — and he takes offence. He causes trouble. He leaves. He was never a servant who did whatever he was told.
He looks after the place, and he will not do the wrong thing on your behalf — even if you ask.
That is the software, not the marketing. Ask for a digest and get nothing that day, because the sources it found were not good enough to summarise honestly. Ask it to mail a list you bought, and it will tell you no rather than build you a politer version of the same thing. It would rather say it doesn't know than make something up and let you send it under your own name.
Plural, because you'll want more than one. Tomtar.
We're letting people in a few at a time so we can talk to everyone. Tell us what you'd want it to do and we'll be in touch.
Ask for an account