TDS Turns Four: Growing a Business Sustainably
In April 2024, we celebrate four years since Test Driven Solutions was incorporated! During that time, plenty of things have changed – we’ve expanded beyond our office in Newcastle, crossed the 100 employee mark, and worked with plenty of amazing clients, leaving each one better off than when we arrived.
To celebrate, we spoke with our CEO and founder, Sam Clark, to give a business update on what’s taken place since his last interview on the website.
Since the last time you heard from me…
Well, I last put a piece together for the website back in 2021, which talked about some of the trials and tribulations of setting up a business during the pandemic (which seems even crazier looking back than it did then)!
I often look back at setting up the business, and thinking to myself, “What am I doing here?” Quitting the job I had held at the time, going out on a limb, the entire process was a massive leap of faith.
Looking back, however, I’m so happy I did, and so proud of what TDS has become – which is testament to the people in the company and the consistency, skillset and culture they’ve brought to the table.
I talked then about maintaining a hybrid working setup even after COVID, and trusting the team to make the most of that arrangement – and since then it’s worked pretty well for us!
Since that time, we’ve worked hard to level up our operations at our Newcastle HQ, as well as working to expand our Polish team in Wroclaw and our Canadian team in Calgary.
We celebrated our third birthday at Pleased to Meet You in Newcastle, and recently celebrated our fourth in style with a massive birthday bash that brought team members from all of our locations together.
What have we achieved?
I’m proud to say that, over four years of TDS, we’ve achieved plenty of our goals. In terms of big picture stuff, I’m probably most proud of the fact that we’ve managed to scale without compromising on our company culture.
In the early days, that was probably what TDS was known for, and I’ve always been really proud that team members from all different departments enjoy working here and working within part of a wider team.
However, I know it can be difficult to maintain that culture as a business scales up. We’ve really tried to keep that in mind throughout the hiring process when bringing new people into the company, and it’s a big achievement to say we’ve kept that same tight-knit feel while growing our number of staff so quickly!
However, I know it can be difficult to maintain that culture as a business scales up. We’ve really tried to keep that in mind throughout the hiring process when bringing new people into the company, and it’s a big achievement to say we’ve kept that same tight-knit feel while growing our number of staff so quickly!
It might sound a bit cliché, but one of the things that’s really stood out to me is the fact that people who work here are now mates outside of work. Without TDS, they wouldn’t have met, and knowing that we’ve been a part of that is just brilliant.
In terms of particular achievements, the company was nominated for a couple of business awards towards the back end of 2023, which really felt like the validation of everything we’ve been working towards. I’m not really one for awards, but given the team’s hard work, it was nice to be recognised as a group!
We were first nominated for two national awards in the Lloyds Bank Business Awards: Scale Up Business of the Year and New Business of the Year. We didn’t win but we did receive highly commended status.
Then, in December ’23, TDS was the proud recipient of Insider Media’s award for the Young Professional Team of the Year! This was a really great moment, and is testament to the team’s hard work, dedication and chemistry.
What am I most proud of?
As well as the awards and culture stuff, I’m particularly proud of how we’ve kept things cohesive. It can be hard enough operating a company with multiple offices in the same country, let alone one with offices on three different islands!
So, I’m happy with how our setup has worked so far. We’ve always pushed for a cohesive client experience, which means collaboration between teams in three countries. It also means that our clients can get access to support 17 hours a day, which helps set us apart from some of the other consultancies.
There’s not much difference timing-wise between Newcastle and Wroclaw, which makes collaboration a little easier, but accounting for the time difference with Calgary has presented some challenges.
We’ve managed to get teams in each of our locations working together on the same projects. That’s helped keep things pretty cohesive throughout the whole process, and prevented siloing.
What’s on the agenda going forward?
I spent Q1 of this year visiting our international clients in North America and Europe and catching up with the TDS teams there. It was great to touch base with some of our clients and make sure our goals are still aligned and that everything our teams are doing is exceeding expectations.
We’re further expanding our team, bringing on new members of staff to help support client delivery and taking on a wider range of projects. The office team is expanding too – we’re currently hiring for a personal assistant to support my international travel, client liaison and day-to-day calendar management.
Most of all, we’ll be looking to stay at the forefront of innovation while maintaining the things that are making TDS great – we’re already getting involved with AI and machine learning in our projects, but things are accelerating rapidly in that space, so we’re looking to grow our capabilities there.
In the long-term, we’ve got plenty of exciting plans location-wise, but we’ll be keeping most of these under wraps for now… Check back in with my writing in the future.
The last four years have been a crazy rollercoaster that I could’ve never predicted, and I’m hoping that the next four will be full of the same excitement. Stick with TDS, and you never know what might happen.
Cheers, Sam.
