Fractional Product Team

Your Engineering Department, On Retainer

Stop thinking about "projects" and start thinking about permanent product evolution. When you engage Tinderhouse's Elite Product Pods service, you aren't hiring a vendor for a one-off build; you are securing a dedicated technical powerhouse on a monthly retainer to act entirely on your behalf.

We operate as your internal technology lab, handling the strategy, design, and development of your digital ecosystem while you maintain total control over the roadmap. This is the ultimate “Subscription to Seniority” - providing you with a team that knows your business as well as you do.

The Power of an Embedded Partnership

Traditional agencies work on "deliverables," but your fractional product team works on objectives. By holding Tinderhouse on retainer, you bypass the friction of constant quoting and scoping.

100% Agency Alignment: We join your internal communication channels and attend your strategy meetings to ensure we are always pulling in the same direction.

Immediate Capacity: Need to pivot your AI strategy or launch a new Flutter feature? Your pod is already briefed and ready to execute - no new contracts required.

Institutional Knowledge: Unlike freelancers who disappear, our 100% in-house team retains every bit of "tribal knowledge" about your codebase, ensuring long-term stability and faster iteration.

Why Retain Tinderhouse's Elite Product Pods Service Over Hiring In-House?

The hidden costs of an internal team, recruitment, National Insurance, pensions, and management “drag”, can cripple a growth-stage company. Tinderhouse's Elite Product Pods service offers a superior alternative:

• Investor-Ready Engineering: We build to the high standards required for due diligence, ensuring your software is a financial asset that increases company valuation.
   
• Multidisciplinary Mastery: For the cost of one senior hire, your retainer grants you fractional access to a CTO, UI/UX Designer, and Lead Developers across iOS, Android, and Web.
   
• Agentic AI Advantage: We proactively integrate autonomous agents and reasoning engines into your workflow to keep you ahead of the 2026 market.

How the Retainer Works

We provide a transparent, flat-fee structure that allows you to budget with 100% certainty.

Strategic Alignment: We start with a technical discovery phase to align our pod with your 12-month goals.

Dedicated Throughput: You receive a guaranteed number of "Product Points" or hours per month, managed via Agile sprints.

Total IP Ownership: Even though we act on your behalf, you own 100% of the code, documentation, and intellectual property from day one.

Why Choose an Established Agency Over Freelance Talent?

While the fractional market is flooded with individual freelancers, they often bring significant "Key Person Risk" to your business. If a freelancer leaves or falls ill, your product roadmap stalls and your institutional knowledge vanishes. By retaining Tinderhouse's Elite Product Pods service, you are securing two decades of agency stability and a 100% in-house team that has operated together since 2003.

We have spent over 23 years in business, maintaining a 75% client return rate. We offer the long-term continuity that an internal team provides, backed by the specialised multidisciplinary skill set only a senior agency can deliver. We don't just write code; we provide the architectural foundation and strategic partnership required to turn your technology into a scalable business asset.

Elite Heritage, Proven Stability

• Official Technology Partner to Team Sky (2010-2015): We engineered the real-time telemetry and GPS tracking systems used by Tour de France champions.
   
• Scale Without Friction: Our consumer sports tracking application, Map My Tracks, has scaled to millions of registered users.
   
• High-Compliance Expertise: We have delivered high-security projects for the NHS and a UK central banking portal, used daily by every major UK bank.

Three Tiers Designed For Your Growth Stage

Growth Path Guarantee: Start at Sprint Partner. As you raise funding or increase revenue, upgrade to Growth Pod or Product Department with zero friction - we already know your codebase and roadmap.

Sprint Partner: Your Post-MVP Foundation

£3,500/month
Best for angel-backed startups (£100-500K raised)

If you've completed your MVP and raised angel funding, Sprint Partner gives you professional execution without the £80K+ commitment of a full-time hire. You receive 2 days per week of senior development capacity - approximately 16 hours delivered in focused bi-weekly sprints.

Your pod works async-first with monthly video sync calls, providing strategic roadmap reviews and architectural guidance each quarter. We integrate into your Slack for quick questions and design consultation, offering async feedback on UX/UI decisions and occasional refinements when needed.

Sprint Partner is ideal for focused feature work - targeted sprints on iOS, Android, or Web for iterative improvements and bug fixing. We provide agentic AI consultation to identify where autonomous agents can enhance your workflows, without over-engineering solutions you're not ready for.

Typical sprint outcomes: Ship 2-3 meaningful features per month, reduce technical debt progressively, maintain product velocity between funding rounds. This tier buys you 12-18 months to validate product-market fit before committing to internal hiring.

Growth Pod: Scaling Toward Series A

£6,000/month
Best for seed-stage companies (£500K-£1M raised)

Growth Pod is where serious velocity begins. With 3 days per week of combined senior development and design work - approximately 24 hours - you gain the capacity to ship across multiple platforms simultaneously while maintaining consistent quality.

You receive fractional CTO support with bi-weekly sprint planning calls, technical decision-making partnership, and investor-ready roadmap planning. Your pod attends your internal planning meetings and integrates directly into your communication channels with dedicated project boards and detailed progress reporting.

This tier unlocks active design collaboration - regular design sprints, prototyping, and user experience optimisation. Your designer and developers work in parallel, meaning you're not blocked waiting for designs before development begins. We provide targeted AI features, adding autonomous agents to specific business workflows and user experiences where they create genuine value.

Typical sprint outcomes: Ship 5-8 features per month across multiple platforms, prepare technical documentation for Series A due diligence, build infrastructure that scales to 100K+ users. Growth Pod clients typically graduate to Product Department as they approach Series A or upgrade to internal teams once they reach £3M+ ARR.

Product Department: Your Complete Technical Leadership

£10,000-12,000/month
Best for Series A+ funded or revenue-generating companies

Product Department replaces your need for an internal engineering department entirely. With near full-time capacity - 4+ days per week - multiple specialists work in parallel across your entire technical ecosystem. This is the final step before hiring internally, or a permanent solution if you prefer to stay lean and capital-efficient.

You receive CTO-level ownership with weekly leadership engagement, board-ready reporting, and complete technical due diligence support for fundraising or M&A. Your fractional CTO attends board meetings, manages vendor relationships, and provides the strategic oversight investors expect from a £120K+ internal hire.

This tier provides full design partnership - end-to-end UI/UX ownership, brand evolution, and comprehensive user research. Your team operates as an embedded department with weekly standups, direct integration into your systems, and monthly stakeholder decks formatted for board presentation.

We deliver full-stack execution across your entire technical landscape: native iOS and Android apps, responsive web platforms, API architecture, AI integration, and cloud infrastructure. This includes building AI-first systems with core business logic around advanced reasoning engines and large-scale agentic automation - not just bolt-on features, but fundamental architecture designed for autonomous operation.

Typical sprint outcomes: Ship 10-15 features per month, maintain 99.9% uptime at scale, provide technical documentation that passes Big Four audit standards, prepare systems for acquisition due diligence. Product Department clients either scale to internal teams post-Series B or retain Tinderhouse permanently as a capital-efficient alternative to £400K+ annual engineering overhead.