Banking that finally works the way freelancers do

Freelancers juggle irregular income, tax set-asides and unpaid invoices across a patchwork of apps. Pillar's founders had a banking license and a strong engineering team, but no product yet and a launch date nine months away. They needed an app that made money feel calm, and a design foundation their own team could carry forward after we left.

We interviewed 40 freelancers in four countries before drawing a single screen. The pattern was clear: people did not want more charts, they wanted to know what was safe to spend. That became the heart of the app, a single number that automatically holds back tax and recurring costs. We prototyped it in week three, tested it with customers every two weeks and built the component library in parallel, so engineering never waited on design.

Pillar launched in the Netherlands and Germany with a 4.8 rating on both app stores. The design system now covers more than 300 screens and is maintained entirely by Pillar's in-house team.