Building Tortmann

An interview with Naz Palen, design leader and founder at Tortmann

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We speak to Naz Pelen, product design director with a career spanning McKinsey, Zalando and most recently HelloFresh. Now, Naz is co-founder at Tortmann, a baking mix brand bringing unusual recipes and organic ingredients to the German market.

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The Spark

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Last year, after three years in design leadership at HelloFresh, Naz left without a plan. What she did have was a desire to build something from scratch. A true zero to one.

Growing up in Istanbul, food was always central. Family gatherings happened around the table. Turkish culture meant generous meals, shared stories, and being together. Naz had even dreamed of opening her own restaurant one day.

Around the same time, she began talking with Thomas, a former Zalando colleague and user researcher turned aspiring baker. He had planned to open a bakery, but after running the numbers, suggested a different idea. Baking mixes instead.

They had worked well together before. Designer and user researcher. So they decided to try again.

Now they are two designers running a food business, learning as they go.

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From Idea to Launch in Two Months

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The problem was simple. Baking is either too complicated, or supermarket mixes taste bad and offer little variety beyond yellow cake, brownies, and muffins.

“Some people don’t even want to admit it’s a baking mix because they’re ashamed,” Naz says. “We wanted the opposite feeling. We want people to feel proud.”

They finalised the idea in August 2025. By October 15th, they had launched physical products and a Shopify store.

Instead of spending money on Instagram ads, they sold at farmers markets to test real demand. The goal was clear. Find 100 strangers willing to pay full price.

They hit it in three weeks.

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The Designer Advantage

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Naz credits her design background for giving Tortmann its foundation.

“We build personas, iterate, and work with messy inputs every day as designers. Those are exactly the skills you need when starting a business. The overlap was natural. Understanding customer problems, interpreting weak signals, rapid prototyping, constant experimentation".

There was also a gap. “I know how to build the product. I don’t know how to sell it. I’ve never done that.” As they scale, marketing support is next.

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Learning by Testing Everything

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Their first customer hypothesis was wrong. “We thought this was for hipsters in Berlin and Munich. It’s not. It’s for people in rural areas, often with families, who don’t have access to these kinds of recipes.” They learned by testing constantly. Christmas limited editions, influencer partnerships, Instagram campaigns. Every experiment taught them something new.

The matcha cookies stood out.

“We were testing different combinations of baking powder and cornstarch. Both of us were awake for nights, followed by serious sugar crashes.” The caffeine content made sleep impossible after tasting dozens of batches.

“If you’re going into food, make sure it’s something you like eating. You’re going to eat it. A lot.”

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What’s Next

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Before the year ended, they ran a full strategy workshop complete with a Miro board and compiled research. “Some of my designer friends love that I do strategy workshops for just the two of us.”

Q1 is focused on operations and packaging. Right now, one full day a week goes into manually mixing and packing orders, which clearly does not scale.

The bigger goal is to expand the range, increase monthly sales and land two retail partners by year end. Not big supermarkets, but small niche shops.

“It’s a long game,” Naz says. Unlike HelloFresh, people do not bake a full cake every week. “It’s more of a lifestyle brand.” That is exactly what makes it interesting to build as a designer. “You have more room for aesthetics and for designing experiences.”

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Advice for Design Founders

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Naz’s advice is practical, honest and rooted in doing the work.

• Start with what you know. Do not try to do everything at once. That will come eventually.
• Use the tools you already have. Customer research, personas, value propositions and rapid prototyping genuinely help when starting from scratch.
• Find a co founder who complements you. If you are solo, keep a strong critical inner dialogue.
• Be honest about your motivation.

“If I wanted to get really rich, I probably would not do a baking mix business. But it is fun, and I love building it with a friend.”

Tortmann is bootstrapped, experimental and still evolving. They found product market fit in three weeks, adapted quickly based on real customer behaviour and built something they actually enjoy working on. Sometimes that is enough.

Follow Tortmann on Instagram @tortmann or visit tortmann.de

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About Naz

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Naz is a design leader based in Berlin. Originally from Istanbul, she studied computer science before moving into UX and interaction design.

She has over a decade of experience across consultancy at McKinsey, ecommerce at Zalando, climate tech at Ecosia and food delivery at HelloFresh. Her work focuses on zero to one product development, user research and design leadership.

Now co founding Tortmann with fellow designer Thomas, Naz is applying product design thinking to building a baking mix brand from scratch.