Side House, a full digital ecosystem for premium independent hospitality
From product strategy to guest experience: building a booking engine, design system, marketing website, and guest web app in 4 months, from scratch.
Year
2025/26
Industry
Hospitality tech
Role
Designer & Product Director
Timeline
MVP in 4 months
€20k
Digital revenue generated in the first week after launch
4 months
From blank page to fully operational digital product
~70
Design system components built
Context
Premium stays shouldn't feel like a tech demos
Side House offers premium vacation home stays with hotel-grade service. Their challenge wasn't just building a website, it was defining what a digital experience should feel like for a brand where the physical stays are the product.
The concept: quiet tech. Inject exactly the right amount of technology to enhance the guest experience without making the house feel like a spaceship. Every digital touchpoint had to be invisible enough to stay out of the way, and smart enough to actually help.
The Challenge
Building everything, fast and right
Side House aimed to launch with a presence that felt established and demonstrated a high digital standard from the outset.
The scope in 3 months:
Product strategy
Design system
Website
Custom booking engine
House Guide
Web app
Branding elements
Design system
One system to rule them all
A detailed design system was crafted first, featuring typography, colors, spacing, and 50 reusable components. This ensured rapid design and consistent visuals across all platforms.
Website
A website that sells the feeling first
The website needed to communicate the essence of Side House before the guest even read a line of copy. Homepage and house pages were built on a headless CMS, giving the Side House team 100% autonomy to update content, add new properties, and manage listings, with no developer required.
Booking engine
In house built booking engine
Side House was handling all reservations manually through WhatsApp conversations, a process that was slow, error-prone, and unscalable. The custom booking engine replaced that entirely: date selection, availability check, guest details, payment, all in a seamless, branded flow.
Guest web app
The house in your pocket
The House Guide is a progressive web app given to guests on arrival. Instead of a paper booklet or a WhatsApp thread, guests get a beautifully designed interface to explore the house, discover amenities, get recommendations for activities, and contact curated local services, private chef, yoga teacher, concierge.
Designed to feel like a natural extension of the house itself, not like a tech product.
Outcome
Launched. Booked. Scalable.
Side House launched its MVP on schedule with a complete digital ecosystem, from first visit to post-booking guest experience. The brand is now fully autonomous on content management, the booking engine is live and generating revenue, and the platform is architected to scale from 1 to 6 properties within the year.
Credit
Development: José Barcelon & Opti Studio — Branding: Deux-cé agency