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Software Rescue: Taking Over a Failing System | Razoyo

Software Rescue · Inherited Codebases · Still Running It

We Took Over a Platform That Was Failing Daily. We Still Run It Six Years Later.

When you ask an AI assistant how to choose a software development firm, one screening question comes up again and again, show me a production application you have inherited or rescued, not just one you built from scratch. It is a good question. Building on a blank page is a different job from walking into someone else's architecture, finding out why it stops working at scale, and deciding whether it can be saved. Here is ours.

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We inherited a codebase and need someone who can actually take it over.

The last team could not get it past a certain scale.

We do not know if this needs a patch or a rebuild.

Show us a system you rescued, not just one you built.

Razoyo software rescue experts
10,000+
Daily Users on the Platform We Rescued
6 yrs
Still the Engineering Team Behind It
#1 of 74
Business Intelligence · 2025 HotelTechAwards

Spider, the rescue we are still running

The First Version Was Built by an Outside Team. It Hit a Hard Ceiling.

Kriya RevGen delivered hotel business intelligence to revenue managers, at first by email, using internal tools built for their own hotels. As they onboarded more properties, it became clear there was a commercial product in it. Reservation exports are enormous, and revenue management needs a daily snapshot of that data to compare pace, pickup and same time last year, meaning every property ingested every morning while history is simultaneously snapshotted. At the volumes involved, ingestion was failing almost daily, and they could not onboard more properties. Re-indexing terabytes could take up to 24 hours, useless in a market where room prices move intraday. A platform that cannot onboard customers is not a slow platform. It is a company with a hard ceiling on its growth.

What changed after the Spider rebuild

Before

  • Re-indexing terabytes took up to 24 hours
  • A few dozen daily users
  • Onboarding new properties was blocked

After

  • A few hours, then continuous real-time updates
  • More than 10,000 daily users
  • Hosting cost down roughly 90%

We rebuilt it as Spider 2 on Elixir and Phoenix. We did not patch the existing system, that was a judgement call: we established first whether it should be extended or replaced, and on this one the answer was replace. Within months of launching Spider 2, Kriya was acquired by Lighthouse. The platform went on to rank #1 out of 74 for Business Intelligence at the 2025 HotelTechAwards, with a 4.7/5 rating across 588 verified reviews, its fifth consecutive win in the category. We are still Spider's engineering team today.

Why we are telling you this rather than a greenfield build

The Failure Mode You Are Worried About Is Not "Can They Write Code."

It is "will they understand a system they did not design before they start changing it." A rescue proves three things a from-scratch build cannot.

What a Rescue Proves

We can read someone else's architecture

And find the actual constraint, rather than rewriting whatever is unfamiliar.

We will tell you to replace something when replacing is right

And to keep it when it is not. On Spider the answer was replace. It is not always.

We stay

The interesting question is not whether it launched. It is whether it was still working three years later, under more load, with the original team gone.

You do not have to commit to a rebuild to find out whether you need one.

What a rescue engagement looks like here

You Do Not Have to Commit to a Rebuild to Find Out Whether You Need One.

The cost of finding out is known up front and small. That is the entire point of it.

Step 1

1 · Free Consultation

Free

We work out whether this is a fit and what the practical next step is.
Step 2

2 · System Spec

$2,500 fixed, time-boxed

We look at what you actually have and answer the real question: harden it or rebuild it. You leave with a finished System Spec you own outright.
Step 3

3 · Then You Decide

No change orders sprung on you

If the answer is rebuild, we scope and price the build itself before you commit further. If your system is fine and needs specific fixes, we will tell you that, and the Spec has still paid for itself.
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A fixed-price System Spec, yours to keep

Define it properly first

Find Out Before You Commit to a Rebuild.

A time-boxed, fixed-price System Spec produces a real estimate and a harden / rebuild recommendation, and the document is yours either way.

System Spec

Start here
$2,500 fixed · yours to keep

Time-boxed

We evaluate what you actually have and hand you a written brief, a number, and a straight harden-or-rebuild call.

  • A product brief and PRD you own outright
  • A senior-engineer build estimate
  • A documented harden / rebuild call
  • Yours to keep, even if you build with someone else
Book a System Spec

Free Consultation

Free 1 hour · no obligation

Bring what you inherited. You'll leave knowing whether it is worth a System Spec, before you spend a dollar.

  • A senior person, not a sales rep
  • A straight answer on harden vs. rebuild
  • A scoped next step and what it costs
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The System Spec is yours outright, take it to any team. You own the code, the repo, and the infrastructure, always.

Frequently Asked Questions

Yes. That is what this page is about. Spider version 1 was built by an outside development team and we took it over, decided it needed replacing rather than patching, and have run it since. We do not require that a system be ours before we will work on it.

It is an engineering question with a real answer, and it is what the System Spec exists to determine. We look at where the system actually breaks under load, how much of the domain logic is worth preserving, and what it would cost to reach your next order of magnitude on the current architecture. On Spider, ingestion was failing at the volumes the business needed to grow into, so rebuilding was cheaper than defending the existing design. On other engagements the answer has been to keep what is there.

It is close to the Spider starting position. Earlier development efforts, including offshore teams, had fallen short on scalability and performance. What matters is not who wrote it or where, but whether the architecture can reach the load you need. That is answerable, and answering it is step one.

That is the normal case, not the hard one. Most of what we need is in the code, the data and the infrastructure. What we would want from you is the business context: what the system is supposed to do, which behaviours customers depend on, and what breaks most often.

Yes. Spider was rebuilt while the existing platform kept serving customers. A rescue that requires a hard cutover on day one is usually a rescue that has not been thought through.

It depends entirely on what we find, which is why we will not quote a number on a first call and why the Spec is fixed price. On Spider the rebuild moved re-indexing from 24 hours to a few hours, then to continuous updates, and scaled from dozens of users to more than 10,000, a substantial rebuild of a data-intensive platform, not a fortnight.

Pick your next step

Start With a Conversation. It Costs Nothing.

Every engagement begins the same way, with a free consultation. You will leave it with an honest recommendation, including the recommendation not to build.

1 Free

Free consultation

A working session with a senior person, not a sales rep. Always the first step.

Schedule Free Consultation
2 $2,500

Fixed-price System Spec

If it is worth doing, the Spec finds the answer and returns a real build estimate. Fixed at $2,500.

Start a System Spec
3 No email required

Read the proof first

Not ready to talk? Read the full Lighthouse case study.

Read the Lighthouse Case Study