Fertifa
Rescued from a failed agency, rebuilt from scratch, and grown to serve Monzo, Bain Capital, and others, across multiple funding rounds.
The Situation
Their previous agency left them with a product that would never pass enterprise security.
Fertifa had a product on paper, nearly done, according to the agency. In practice, it could not pass the security reviews required by the enterprise clients they were actively trying to close.
For a company handling sensitive reproductive health data for large employers, that was not a minor technical oversight. It was a business-ending problem. They had not yet faced a formal enterprise security review, but our assessment was clear: the platform would not pass one. Enterprise procurement teams at companies like Monzo have hard requirements on security. There is no partial credit.
Their previous agency had built something that looked like a platform in demos, held together with shortcuts that collapsed under real scrutiny. The code was undocumented, fragile, and had no security foundations. The founders had spent months and significant budget on it. Now they had a pipeline of deals they could not close and a codebase they could not trust.
The Challenge
How do you rescue a product without losing the pipeline behind it?
Fertifa came to us with four simultaneous pressures:
- Enterprise clients were waiting in the pipeline, but the product was not ready to serve them
- Their runway had been significantly reduced by the failed first attempt
- They had been misled before and were, understandably, skeptical of anyone new
- The existing codebase was a liability, not a foundation to build on
They needed a team that would tell them the truth, move fast without cutting corners, and understand the stakes of getting enterprise security wrong a second time.
What We Did
We recommended starting over. It was the right call and we knew it would be a hard conversation.
The honest assessment was this: patching the existing codebase would take longer than rebuilding it properly. That is not what founders want to hear when they have already spent money. But it was true, and Fertifa respected it.
We rebuilt the platform with enterprise security at the foundation, not bolted on afterwards. End-to-end data encryption, audit logging, and role-based access control were designed in from day one. Instead of disappearing for three months and returning with a demo, we shipped working software every two weeks: actual progress they could test, not slide updates.
Fertifa spoke directly to the engineers building their platform, with no account managers in between. When something needed a decision, it got one in hours.
The Outcome
The platform that could not pass a security review now serves Monzo, Bain Capital, and others.
The Lesson
The cheapest agency is rarely the cheapest option.
Fertifa paid twice: once for a platform that did not work, once for a platform that did. The second time, they paid for engineers who told them hard truths up front, worked transparently, and built something their enterprise clients would trust.
Four years later, after multiple funding rounds and a growing enterprise client base, they were ready to build their own engineering team. We helped them hire their Head of Engineering, worked alongside the new team through the handover, and stepped back once they had everything they needed.
For us, that is the right ending: a client that outgrows you because the product works and the business is growing.
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Working with Hurricane Studio has given us the best of both worlds: flexibility to manage burn and make the most of our limited runway, but best-in-class dev resources so we don't have to compromise on the quality of our platform.
Product Lead, Fertifa
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If you're dealing with a failed agency project or a product that isn't working, we've been here before. Let's talk about what it would take to fix it.