About Sendough

Sendough is a UK shopping referral app built around a simple idea: ordinary people influence what their friends and family buy every day, even if they have never thought of themselves as influencers.

When a genuine recommendation leads to an eligible purchase, Sendough gives the person who made it a way to share in the value they helped create.

Where the idea came from

The idea for Sendough came from something I noticed after the birth of our first child. My partner and the other new parents around us were constantly recommending things to one another: prams, sleeping bags, toys, baby carriers, food bags and all the other bits of kit you suddenly discover when you have a baby.

Those recommendations happened in NCT groups, WhatsApp chats and ordinary conversations between people who knew and trusted each other. Quite often, somebody would buy something simply because another parent had said, “We’ve got this one. It’s really good.”

I watched those recommendations influence real buying decisions, but the person making them received nothing in return. At the same time, it had become perfectly normal for somebody with thousands of followers to earn when their recommendation resulted in a sale.

That made me ask a simple question: why should you need an audience before your recommendation has value?

I built Sendough for my partner. I wanted to create a way for her, and for people like her, to be recognised for the genuine recommendations they were already making every day.

The idea quickly grew beyond parenting. Runners recommend trainers. Friends share clothes, beauty products and places to stay. Families recommend broadband providers, household products and other things they have found useful.

People already help one another decide what is worth buying. Sendough is designed for those everyday recommendations.

How Sendough works

Sendough fits into the way people already browse, shop and share on their phones.

When somebody finds something worth recommending, they can use their phone’s normal Share menu and choose Sendough. Where the retailer is supported, Sendough creates a trackable recommendation that can be sent privately to a friend, family member or someone else they know.

The recipient follows the recommendation to the retailer and shops as normal. They do not receive a discount, reward or other incentive for buying.

If the recommendation results in an eligible purchase, the person who made it can receive most of the affiliate commission earned by Sendough.

The retailer continues to run its normal website or app, checkout, payment, fulfilment, returns and customer service. Sendough works through existing affiliate programmes rather than changing the retailer’s shopping experience.

Why it matters

Influence does not only happen on public feeds.

It happens when a new parent tells a friend which pushchair they bought, when a runner recommends their trainers, when somebody sends a dress to a friend, or when a family member recommends the hotel they stayed in last summer.

Those recommendations already happen. Sendough is not built on pretending otherwise.

Instead, it gives people a reason to make more of them, gives the person making the recommendation a chance to share in the value they create, and makes the resulting traffic and sales measurable.

A retailer may already benefit from word of mouth. Sendough gives people a reason to do more of it and turns some of that previously informal recommendation activity into a measurable acquisition channel.

That opportunity is not limited to the biggest brands. From independent British retailers trying to reach new customers to some of the country’s best-known names, a good recommendation from somebody you trust can be far more persuasive than another advert appearing on a screen.

Share what you love. Earn when they buy.

Built in Essex, with AI

Sendough has been bootstrapped from Essex, without a large engineering team or outside investment.

As a solo founder, I have used modern AI tools throughout the process to help design, code, test and operate the platform.

What would once have required a sizeable technical team has been built by one person with a laptop, AI assistance and an idea I thought was worth pursuing.

That is an important part of the Sendough story. The current generation of AI is not only changing how established companies work. It is also lowering the cost of turning an idea into a real product and giving individuals the ability to attempt things that would previously have required far more people and capital.

Behind the simple act of sharing something with a friend, Sendough has to connect mobile apps, affiliate networks, retailer programmes, link tracking, transaction reporting and customer earnings. AI has helped make it possible to build and manage that complexity while keeping the experience for the person using Sendough deliberately simple.

A British shopping and technology business

Sendough was conceived and built in the UK for a UK launch.

Its aim is to create value from recommendation behaviour that already exists between friends, families and communities, while giving retailers another performance-based way to reach customers.

For independent British retailers in particular, word of mouth has always mattered. A recommendation from a real customer can introduce a business to somebody who might otherwise never have discovered it.

Sendough gives that behaviour a structure that can be measured and rewarded, without asking a customer to become a content creator, build a following or publicly promote the brands they like.

The same principle works for larger retailers too: Sendough turns customers into recommenders, without asking them to become creators.

For press and media

Some of the wider themes behind Sendough include:

• Influence without an audience: Sendough challenges the idea that online influence only belongs to people with public followings. It is built around private recommendations between ordinary people.
• Word of mouth made measurable: Sendough gives people a reason to recommend more often and allows resulting traffic and eligible sales to be measured through existing affiliate infrastructure.
• A different model for British retail: Independent retailers and major brands alike can benefit from genuine customer recommendations without requiring influencer campaigns or a new checkout or fulfilment system.
• An AI-enabled solo founder story: Sendough has been bootstrapped in Essex by a solo founder using AI throughout the development and operation of the platform.
• Everyday earning: Sendough gives ordinary people an opportunity to earn from genuine recommendations they may already be making to friends and family.

For press, partnership or media enquiries, contact support@sendough.com.