About Us

Our story started with a small shoe factory in southern Estonia, which has made great boots for over 75 years. Boots trusted even by NATO armies. We soon found out that the factory has also been a trusted partner for multiple well-known international brands, including Dr. Martens and Rossignol. However, as the primary focus of the factory is on enterprise-level clients, private customers could only buy the boots at the physical factory store.

This made no sense to us. So, after a couple of meetings and workshops, we opened an online store in Estonia, Saapavabrik, making those great boots available to a broader audience.

Not long after that, thanks to our friend Indrek, we discovered a small studio in Tartu, Estonia, that makes fantastic hiking and mountain climbing bags. In fact, the greatest Estonian mountaineer Alar Sikk uses their bags. And a similar story followed: we created an online store Kotivabrik that made those bags available online.

Soon we realized that there must be thousands of small manufacturers in Europe that must create excellent products which are not widely available. We wanted to help these small manufacturers grow, which is how the idea for Hertwill arose. Hertwill connects independent brands with online stores around the world. We are looking for manufacturers making truly great and long-lasting products so that online stores can make their users happy with our unique and excellent product selection.

If you feel you are one of those great brands we are looking for or an online store that would like to grow sales through independent brands, please don't hesitate to contact us through hello@hertwill.com.

But who are the people behind Hertwill? We are three friends with a startup and retail background. Roland previously worked as an engineer in Pipedrive, Annamari has UI/UX designer background from Single Earth and Ekspress Media, and Joosep worked as a product manager and e-commerce manager for Omniva and Rahva Raamat. But maybe the most crucial piece of information is that Joosep is one of the best Enemy Territory players in the world.

Co-founders of Hertwill: Annamari, Joosep and Roland