Hortensia is a product partner for founders who refuse to ship mediocre software: two co-founders, ten leads and 20+ senior specialists in the UK and Tunisia, who plan, design, build and grow your product as one team.
We started Hortensia because we were tired of watching founders get burned.
We had seen it too many times. A brilliant founder with a vision, an agency that promised the world, and $50K later a buggy MVP built by juniors who disappeared after launch. Nobody on that team cared whether the product succeeded.
There was a better way: senior people working directly with founders, fixed prices that keep everyone's incentives aligned, and a team that measures itself by whether the product works in the market, not by whether it shipped.
Our mission is simple: be the technical co-founders every startup deserves but few can afford. We don't just build products, we build businesses.
Arbi JouiniCo-Founder, CEO and CTOBetween them: three companies founded, rounds raised, and more than a decade of delivering software for others. They are on every project, not just the sales call.
Co-Founder, CEO and CTO
Arbi has shipped 50+ products across SaaS, FinTech and EdTech, and killed twice as many bad ideas before they wasted a client's budget. Three-time founder and fractional CTO.
“Every founder deserves a team that treats their product like their own. We remember what it felt like when no one did.”Arbi on LinkedIn
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Co-Founder and COO
Amin spent a decade in enterprise project management. At Hortensia he runs a delivery system that gives founders enterprise-grade reliability without the bureaucracy. PMP certified.
“I have watched brilliant ideas die in status meetings. We don't let that happen here.”Amin on LinkedIn
Each lead runs a discipline and a bench of senior specialists. The people who plan your product are the people who build it.
Design
Head of Design
Leads the UI and UX vision across every product, with a focus on design that converts.
Engineering
Head of Engineering
Owns technical architecture and engineering quality, on systems that handle millions of requests a day.
Product
Product Lead
Bridges strategy and execution, and has helped 20+ startups define their MVP scope and roadmap.
Growth
Head of Growth
Runs go-to-market strategy and growth work for launches and the months after them.
Frontend
Frontend Lead
Builds fast, accessible interfaces, with Lighthouse scores in the mid-nineties as the norm.
Mobile
Mobile Lead
Ships native-quality mobile apps to iOS and Android, used by 50K+ people.
DevOps
DevOps and Infrastructure Lead
Designs the infrastructure behind every launch, at 99.9% uptime across client deployments.
AI
AI/ML and Automation Lead
Builds the AI features and automations, and cut one client’s AI costs by 70% along the way.
We have raised rounds, shipped products and felt the weight of a missed deadline. We don’t advise from the sidelines; we build next to you.
Fixed pricing means we do well only when we ship something that works. No padded estimates and no surprise invoices.
We push back when something won’t work and tell you what not to build. Most agencies say yes to everything; we help you make the hard calls.
2020
Our first client product, a fintech app, raised $500K in seed funding. It taught us that technical excellence without product thinking leads nowhere.
2021
A project failed because we said yes to everything the client asked for. We vowed never again, and became the team that tells you what not to build.
2022
We turned that lesson into a framework: strategy, design, build, grow. The first client to use it raised their seed round with our MVP as the proof.
2023
We grew to ten department leads and 15+ specialists, and stayed selective about projects so every client got our best people.
2024
Clients raised $10M+ on products we built. Curve reached $50K MRR, Stellify onboarded 500+ artists and Thryve reached 15K students.
Today
Two co-founders, ten leads and 20+ specialists across the UK and Tunisia, with one mission: products founders are proud to put their name on.
Thirty minutes with a founder, not a salesperson. Bring the idea and we'll tell you honestly whether we're the right team for it.