How Lettuce Launched Embedded Accounting for Solopreneurs in Under 2 Months with Tight

Building a Full-Stack Product Fast—Without Compromising on Experience

From day zero, Lettuce had an ambitious goal: to launch a complete, usable finance management platform for solopreneurs within just six months. That meant standing up not only their own custom logic and UX, but also solutions across key areas like banking, payroll, taxes, and accounting.

The Lettuce team knew from past experience that building everything in-house wasn’t realistic if they wanted to meet their deadline and deliver a polished product to market. They were working with a small development team, limited resources, and a need to integrate multiple financial services at once, including Unit for banking and Gusto for payroll. For accounting and bookkeeping, Tight was the clear choice.

“We evaluated QuickBooks and Xero, but they just weren’t built for startups like ours. They’re not API-first. They’re not self-serve. And the lift to get started was way too heavy. We needed a partner that could match our speed, plug directly into our product, and support our engineering-first culture.”

– Ran Harpaz, Founder and CEO, Lettuce

With Tight, Lettuce was able to skip the lengthy enterprise sales cycle and dive right into building. Lettuce’s team had immediate access to Tight’s API documentation, could spin up sandboxes quickly, and were given the freedom to test and integrate as they went.

“We like to build first, and formalize the partnership later,” said Harpaz. “Tight was aligned with that philosophy from the start.”

An Embedded Accounting Engine That Evolves With the Product

Tight’s API gave Lettuce the accounting functionality they needed right out of the gate, including precise expense tracking, custom income classifications, and complete back-office visibility. But what really set the partnership apart was Tight’s openness to collaboration.

Lettuce had strong opinions about how accounting should work for their unique customer base, especially when it came to features like the chart of accounts, transaction categorizations, and admin override capabilities. Tight not only welcomed that input—they iterated on it.

“We’d move fast, build functionality on top of Tight’s out-of-the-box API, and then Tight would standardize that logic into their product. Over time, we were able to remove our custom layers and let Tight handle more of the heavy lifting. It was a true back-and-forth collaboration.”

– Ran Harpaz, Founder and CEO, Lettuce

One standout example: invoicing. Lettuce wanted to offer simple, reliable invoicing that fit into their tax-first experience. Tight already had an integrated solution, but it didn’t initially meet Lettuce’s specific needs. Rather than look elsewhere, Lettuce became a design partner, launching with Tight’s baseline product and sending regular feedback to guide iterations. Within weeks, the product was significantly stronger, and strong customer adoption quickly followed.

Speed to Market, High Adoption, and Record-Low Lift

Tight enabled Lettuce to achieve their ambitious launch timeline while delivering a comprehensive financial platform that resonated with their target market.

Some of the highlights of the partnership include:

• < 2 months of engineering effort: The time it took Lettuce to integrate Tight’s embedded accounting solutions represented only a fraction of total development.
• 6 months to launch: Thanks to Tight’s flexible API, responsive team, and engineering-first approach, Lettuce brought a full-stack financial platform to market—integrating accounting and other core products on an impressive timeline.
• 30%+ attach rate: Customers adopted Lettuce’s Tight-powered invoicing tools at a high rate—a strong indicator that they value built-in invoicing solutions over standalone apps.
• 0 dedicated headcount: The Tight integration runs smoothly without full-time oversight or maintenance, allowing Lettuce’s lean engineering team to stay focused on innovation.

Tight enabled Lettuce to ship faster and smarter without having to make difficult tradeoffs on product quality or customer experience. As Lettuce continues to expand across key segments, Tight’s ability to adapt and grow alongside them remains an important asset.

“There are 12 integrations that go into our platform, and our development team consists of just five engineers. The fact that we don’t need a full-time person managing the Tight integration says everything.”

– Ran Harpaz, Founder and CEO, Lettuce

Building the Go-To OS for the Solo Economy

Lettuce has ambitious plans to become the only platform solopreneurs rely on to run their business, spanning taxes, payroll, retirement, healthcare, and beyond. It’s a bold vision—but, with infrastructure like Tight in place, it’s entirely within reach. The partnership between Lettuce and Tight exemplifies how the fintech ecosystem enables specialized players to collaborate (rather than compete) as they come together to solve a larger problem.

“Solo business owners deserve the same level of support as any other company,” said Harpaz. “We want to be their operating system of choice, and TIght is a huge part of making that happen.”

Ready to take your platform to the next level? Reach out to Tight’s team to schedule a product demo, and see what our embedded accounting solutions can do for your business.