You hired an offshore agency. The code doesn't work, the team is unresponsive, and you've spent $40k.
We rescue projects that offshore agencies left broken — assess the existing codebase, salvage what's usable, and deliver the product you hired the agency to build. Fixed scope, fixed price.
The offshore agency took the deposit, delivered something that sort of works, missed every deadline, and disappeared when the bugs piled up. You have code you can't trust, a product that's not ready to launch, and a development budget that's mostly gone.
Offshore development agencies have a business model problem that predictably produces bad outcomes for early-stage founders. The agency prices low to win the deal, underestimates the complexity during scoping, assigns junior developers to keep their margin intact, and gradually reduces responsiveness as the project drags beyond the original timeline. By the time the founder realises the project is in trouble, the agency has collected most of the budget and the leverage has shifted.
The code quality problems fall into predictable categories. Security vulnerabilities — SQL injection risks, no input validation, API keys hardcoded in the frontend, no authentication on admin endpoints. Architecture problems — a data model that made sense for a simple prototype but doesn't support the product's actual feature requirements. Missing features — the agency scoped conservatively and delivered the minimum, leaving the product's core value proposition unbuilt. Test coverage of zero — no unit tests, no integration tests, no ability to make changes with confidence that nothing breaks.
The worst position is spending $40k on code that can't be deployed because it's broken, insecure, or missing half the specified features — and having no leverage to get the agency to fix it.
A working product — either salvaged and rebuilt from the existing codebase or rebuilt from scratch where the existing code isn't worth saving — delivered by a developer who is accountable to the outcome, not the billable hour.
Codebase audit
We review the existing codebase for security vulnerabilities, architecture quality, test coverage, and feature completeness. The audit produces a clear finding: salvageable with significant rework, partially salvageable (take the data model, rebuild the application layer), or start over. We don't recommend a rebuild if a salvage is genuinely the right approach.
Security hardening (salvage path)
Fix critical security vulnerabilities first — SQL injection, authentication gaps, exposed secrets, missing input validation. The product can't deploy until it's secure.
Missing feature development
The features the agency specified but didn't build are scoped and priced as defined deliverables.
Architecture refactoring
Data model corrections, API structure improvements, and the refactoring required to support the product's actual requirements — not the simplified version the agency scoped.
Test coverage
Unit tests for business logic, integration tests for critical user paths. The coverage that makes future development reliable. Where the salvage assessment finds code that isn't worth fixing, we rebuild from scratch using the existing product as the specification. Faster and cheaper than trying to fix code that's architecturally broken.
One honest number to start.
Fixed-scope, fixed-price. The number below is the starting point — final scope is built from your brief.
A working product — either salvaged and rebuilt from the existing codebase or rebuilt from scratch where the existing code isn't worth saving — delivered by a developer who is accountable to the outcome, not the billable hour.
Three steps, every time.
The same repeatable engagement on every project. No surprises, no mystery, no billable ambiguity.
Brief & discovery.
We send you questions, then get on a call. Output: a written scope with every step, feature, and integration listed.
Build & ship.
Fixed schedule, weekly reviews. No scope creep unless you change the scope — and if you do, we reprice it transparently.
Warranty & retainer.
30-day warranty on every launch. Most clients stay on a monthly retainer for ongoing features and maintenance.
Why Fixed-Price Matters Here
You've already been burned by a project that didn't deliver. The last thing you need is another open-ended engagement where the developer is charging by the hour with no commitment to outcomes. Fixed scope, fixed price with a defined delivery date is the only commercial structure that makes sense after a failed first attempt.
Related engagements.
Questions, answered.
We look at five factors: (1) Security — is it fixable without architectural changes? (2) Data model — does it support the actual product requirements? (3) Business logic — is it separated from the framework or tangled into it? (4) Testability — can changes be tested reliably? (5) Completion — what percentage of the specified features are actually built and working? If the data model is correct and the core business logic is sound but the presentation layer is broken, salvage is typically right. If the data model is wrong for the product requirements, a rebuild is usually faster.
Legal recourse against offshore agencies is expensive and rarely produces recovery. The practical path is to get the code delivered (if they haven't handed over the repository), do the audit, and make the rebuild/salvage decision based on what's actually there. We've seen situations where the existing code is genuinely 70% of the way to a working product — and situations where the agency delivered something that looks like code but doesn't run.
Fixed-price, fixed-scope engagements with clear deliverables are the primary protection. The agency's incentive in a time-and-materials model is hours, not outcomes. A fixed-price engagement aligns the developer's incentive with yours: deliver the defined scope efficiently or pay the overrun yourself.
Project audit plus salvage/rebuild typically runs $25k–$75k depending on the complexity of the original spec. The audit is priced separately and credited against the project if you proceed. Fixed-price after the audit produces the scope assessment.
8 to 14 weeks for a salvage or rebuild project once the audit is complete and the scope is defined.
Tell Ryel about your project.
Describe what you’re building and what outcome you need. You’ll have a written, fixed-price scope within the week.