I’m Tiago Santos. I find the repetitive, fragile or invisible work in a business and build the missing piece — an automation, a connection between the tools you already use, a website or shop, or a carefully limited AI assistant — so the tools do their job quietly, and you can get back to yours.
Nearly thirty years of building systems have taught me one thing worth saying out loud: more software is rarely the answer. The right software, used carefully, almost always is.
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Four problems and the systems built around them. Each one has a full case on my portfolio, with dates, scale, my role, and what the system does not do.
6 weeks → 1 run every year
A 34-person company updated around 3,800 service contracts every year and then invoiced each one by hand. I built a workflow that wrote the invoices into the company’s management software exactly as if a person had launched them. Six weeks of work became a single run. It ran for four years, and they still asked me to be there when it did.
Operated · four annual cycles
~200 people
A community of around 200 people coordinated accounts, devices and roles through spreadsheets, chat notes and shared logins. I replaced that with central records, roles, purpose-built launchers and automatic removal of access when someone leaves. Administrators see everything in one place. Nobody shares a password to move an account.
Operated · in daily use
~58,000 posts recorded
A brand needed to know what appeared on a social channel without someone checking it all day. A small service reads the public feed through a real browser, keeps a record of every post, and sends an alert to a phone when something relevant shows up. Nothing is published or changed on the account; the service only watches.
Operated · monitoring
5 mailboxes
Important messages were spread across five mailboxes on three providers. One review workspace now sorts them, drafts replies with AI help, and keeps drafting and sending as separate steps — so a person always decides what goes out, to whom, and when.
Operated · daily use
An automation, a connection between the tools you already use, a small custom app, or an AI assistant with clear limits for one specific task. For when your problem doesn’t fit a standard tool — the invoices that take a week, the records kept in three places, the feed someone has to check. Scoped per project.
From €1,500A website or online shop built around how your business actually works — products or services, booking, payments, enquiries, forms, and the notifications that follow. Data kept properly under GDPR. Typically delivered in 3 to 5 weeks; a transactional shop may be scoped higher.
From €1,200A 90-minute conversation about your tools, workflow, and friction points, followed by a short written plan: what to keep, drop, fix, and invest in. No build, no upsell — just an honest second opinion.
€150Hosting, security updates, backups, monitoring, one small change per month, and same-business-day response if something breaks. Cancel anytime.
From €50/monthI’ve been building systems for nearly thirty years, which sounds longer than it feels.
I started in an AutoCAD shop while moonlighting in radio control, got Microsoft and Cisco certified, then spent years freelancing — video editing through the analog-to-digital shift, 3D for architecture, motion work in After Effects — while keeping one foot in server rooms and IT administration. The tools kept changing. What I enjoyed didn’t: making systems that quietly do their job so the people using them can focus on theirs.
A seven-year stretch in crypto taught me, among other things, what happens when technology stops serving the people using it. I came back to tech with more questions than answers, and more interest in restraint than in novelty.
From my base in Lisbon, I help owner-led and small businesses — practitioners, makers, independent professionals, small companies — build calm digital setups in Portugal and across Europe. Sometimes that means custom automation or connecting the tools already in use. Sometimes a website or an online shop. Sometimes configuring secure environments in Google Workspace or databases in Notion. Sometimes it means removing three tools and keeping one. The systems I have built, with dates, scale and known limitations, are on tigs.space/portfolio.
“What I appreciate most is that he explains everything in plain language. No jargon, no condescension. Just clear, honest advice about what I need and what I don’t.
“I’ve been working with Tiago for years. He’s the person I call when something breaks, and nothing has broken in a long time. That says it all.
“Tiago spent fourteen years with us, first as an operator, then running our systems, and he has kept looking after them ever since. I will say it plainly: the company could not run without his help.
I design systems that ensure client notes, contact forms, and intake documents are encrypted and hosted on GDPR-compliant EU servers, with clear consent flows and audit trails.
No. We build and test the new system in parallel with your existing setup. The final switchover is carefully coordinated and takes less than an hour, typically scheduled outside your normal working hours.
I advocate for restraint. Often, we can replace multiple bloated subscriptions with a single streamlined tool like Notion, secure Google Workspace, or a simplified CRM, reducing both cost and complexity.
Carefully, and with a person in charge. Reading is kept separate from writing, drafting from sending, watching from changing. An assistant prepares work and surfaces what you need to know; you or I decide what happens next. Nothing consequential happens without a named person approving it.
It is for owner-led and small businesses — from one person to a few dozen: practitioners, makers, independent professionals, small companies — who feel overwhelmed by their current tools or administrative workload and want an honest, third-party assessment without any sales pitch.
The Quiet Audit is the honest entry point. A 90-minute conversation about your tools, workflow, and friction points — followed by a written plan. €150, no upsell.
We can meet in person in central Lisbon (around Saldanha or Príncipe Real) or talk over a secure video call. If you’d rather just say hello, that’s fine too.
Or email hi@quietsystems.eu
The Audit results in a single, clear, offline-ready document. No fluff, no jargon — just a neutral second opinion on what to keep, remove, and optimize.
Analysis & Restraint Plan