App and Website
Holdback
Setting aside tax money before it gets spent
Client
Holdback
Year
2026
Timeline
14 weeks
Role
Sole designer
Services
App design · Website design · Component library · Website build
The brief
Holdback is an app for US freelancers, who owe estimated taxes four times a year and often spend the money before the payment is due. Holdback moves a share of each payment into a separate account as it comes in. The team already had a banking partner and engineers. They needed the app and a marketing site.
What I did
We started with onboarding, since connecting a bank account is where people give up. The flow asks for one thing at a time and shows how much of the next payment would be set aside before asking for anything else. The home screen answers why people open the app: how much is set aside, and whether it covers the next tax payment. I designed the app and a component library for the engineers, and I built the marketing site so the team can publish updates themselves.
After launch
The app and the site launched together in spring 2026. Since then, new screens are built from the component library, so the engineers don’t wait on a full design round for each feature.
Wes Arcuri · Co-founder, Holdback
“Our engineers built from Juno’s designs without a pile of follow-up questions. Most edge cases were already designed, and when one wasn’t, we had an answer before the next standup.”
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