AOct 14, 2026 · Personal

Most of what I know came from building our own

I have been building software for other people's businesses since 2021. Most of what I know came from building our own.

I'm Ayoub, founder of Hortensia, a software studio. We take on client work, and we use it to fund our own products. Right now that means:

Sparkia, a workspace where brands plan, create, approve and publish their social content with AI. Our own accounts run on it.
Stellify, a music discovery app where fans vote on artist rankings, live in alpha.
GlowIt, a booking app for beauty salons and home beauty services in Tunisia.
Driva, delivery software for last-mile couriers, with a driver app that keeps working offline.
Sprint, the operations platform the whole studio runs on.
Kollabo, a marketplace where brands and creators sign deals with escrow built in, still in build.

On the client side we build apps, platforms and ERPs, from a golf coaching app live on the App Store to the back office of a cosmetics retailer.

Here I will write about what running a studio actually looks like: pricing, scope, hiring, and the products that work and the ones that don't.

If you are building something, what are you working on right now?

Your product could be in it.