The software that got you here is the bottleneck keeping you from what's next.
The application built in year one of the business was built for year one. By year five, with 10x the users, 3x the team, and 5 new product lines, the original architecture is showing its age in performance, in feature velocity, and in the developer hiring rejections. A purpose-built rebuild removes the bottleneck. Fixed scope, fixed price.
Your business has grown past the capabilities of the software that runs it — the original application is slow, expensive to change, and the reason qualified developers decline to join the team.
The growing business's software problem is different from the startup's or the enterprise's. The startup is building for the first time — the technical debt is minimal but the architecture may not scale. The enterprise has the budget and the engineering team to manage legacy systems indefinitely. The growing business is in between: it has an application that works today but is visibly decelerating — adding new features takes 3x longer than it used to, performance is degrading as user volume grows, and the developer team who would accelerate feature development either can't be hired because of the tech stack, or leaves after 6 months because the codebase is too difficult to work in.
The three signals that a growing business application needs a rebuild: feature velocity (the time to ship a new feature has doubled or tripled since the original developer, because each feature requires understanding and working around accumulated technical debt); performance (page loads are getting slower as user volume grows, because the data model and query patterns weren't designed for the current scale); and hiring (qualified developers are declining the role or leaving within their first year because the codebase doesn't reflect the technology they want to work on).
The rebuild decision is a business decision, not a technical one: the ongoing cost of the legacy application (developer time on workarounds, performance impact on customer retention, hiring cost of not being able to staff the engineering team) vs. the one-time cost of the rebuild plus the new system's ongoing cost. For most growing businesses, the crossover point is when the legacy cost exceeds $8,000–$12,000/month.
A modern rebuild of the business's core application — same functionality, new architecture — on a stack that performs at your current scale, changes at the velocity you need, and attracts engineers who want to build on it.
Feature-complete specification
The rebuild specification documents every feature of the existing system — including the edge cases and workflow details that only exist in the behaviour of the current application. The specification is the rebuild contract.
Modern stack
Next.js, TypeScript strict mode, Postgres with Drizzle ORM, Clerk for authentication, and Vercel for deployment. The stack that performs at scale, attracts engineers, and doesn't create new technical debt.
Data migration
The existing database migrated to the new schema with data transformation, validation, and reconciliation. Tested against production data before cutover.
Performance baseline
Core Web Vitals targets defined in the specification. Query performance profiling before launch. The performance improvement is a deliverable, not a side effect.
Incremental or big-bang cutover
The cutover strategy defined in the specification based on the application's complexity and availability requirements. The legacy system maintained as a fallback until the production cutover is confirmed stable.
One honest number to start.
Fixed-scope, fixed-price. The number below is the starting point — final scope is built from your brief.
A modern rebuild of the business's core application — same functionality, new architecture — on a stack that performs at your current scale, changes at the velocity you need, and attracts engineers who want to build on it.
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
A growing business commit to a rebuild that has a defined scope — the existing system. Fixed scope, fixed price.
Related engagements.
The application works. The codebase is holding the business back. Here's how to modernize it without a big-bang rewrite.
Read more02The application that built your business is now the thing slowing it down.
Read more03Series A means you've proved the hypothesis. Now you need to scale the product.
Read moreQuestions, answered.
The legacy application remains the production system for the duration of the rebuild. The rebuild is developed in parallel against a database snapshot updated periodically from production. The cutover is planned for a low-risk period and includes a rollback plan. For most applications, the cutover involves a maintenance window of 4–12 hours.
The rebuild decision is economic, not size-based. An application with 2,000 lines of code that takes 3 days to add a simple feature because of technical debt may justify a rebuild. An application with 50,000 lines of code that's well-structured and still adding features efficiently may not. The specification assessment (2 weeks of code review and documentation) clarifies the case.
The rebuild scope is feature parity plus any features that are essential to launch. Features added beyond the original system are change orders. A limited number of deferred features (from the backlog) are sometimes incorporated where the scope addition is well-defined and doesn't threaten the timeline.
Smaller applications (under 30 features): $30k–$50k. Mid-size applications (30–80 features): $50k–$85k. Larger applications: $85k+. Fixed-price based on the feature inventory from the specification assessment.
Smaller applications: 12–16 weeks. Mid-size: 16–24 weeks.
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.