Stalled build rescue
Your build stalled. We take custody.
The agency went quiet. The prototype works until anyone touches it. The invoices kept arriving and the launch date didn't. We audit what exists, keep what's good, finish what isn't, and hand you a live system with everything in your name.
Fifteen minutes. Bring the last status update your developer sent.
01 · Why you're reading this
Stalled doesn't mean broken. It means stranded.
Most rescues arrive in one of three shapes, and none of them mean the money was wasted. The expensive parts usually exist. They're just sitting in someone else's hands, one decision away from live.
The vendor went quiet
Months past the timeline, meetings offered instead of releases, and a growing feeling that asking for your own site is somehow rude. The work may be fine. The shipping isn't.
The prototype is load-bearing
Somebody built something clever, maybe with AI, maybe over a weekend, and now real customers depend on it. Nobody dares touch it, and nobody is sure what it costs to run.
You don't hold your own keys
The domain sits in the developer's registrar, the hosting is on their card, the code lives in their account. The business is yours. The platform, right now, isn't.
The most recent one to land here: an education platform, months past its date, quizzes coded but never made visible, hosting still inside the vendor's cloud account. Scoped the morning it arrived. Two weeks to live from access in hand.
02 · How a rescue runs
Four moves. The first one costs you days, not months.
Audit what exists
Days, not weeks. We read the code, the hosting, and whatever handover notes exist, then tell you plainly: rescue or rebuild, what works, what's broken, what it takes. Most stalled builds are further along than they feel. You keep the audit either way.
Take custody
Domains, hosting, source, and every credential move into accounts you own. Passwords rotate the day we're in. If the old vendor still holds anything, we run the transfer step by step and you approve each move.
Finish and verify
The shortest honest path to live. We fix what blocks launch, defer what can wait, and then prove the whole flow end to end. A dry run, not a claim: the purchase, the sign-up, the form, whatever your system does, executed and logged before anyone announces anything.
Hand over, live
DNS cutover, a one-page operations guide, and a system running on your own domain. A month-to-month retainer after that if you want one. If you never call us again, everything still works, and everything is still yours.
03 · The terms
The terms are the product.
You're here because the last engagement ran on goodwill and momentum, and both ran out. So the rescue is built on terms that protect you from us, in writing, before any code moves.
Half up front, never further ahead
Half clears before work starts, and we never run more than two working weeks of work ahead of payment. You are never exposed for months of invisible progress, and neither are we.
The proposal is the price
The audit produces a fixed proposal, and that proposal is what you pay. No surprise line items, no meter running quietly in the background.
Everything in your name
Source, credentials, assets, and IP assignment: the full handover package releases on final payment. Your platform is your property, not our leverage.
A verdict in days, live in weeks
You hear rescue-or-rebuild within days of us seeing the code. A typical rescue is live in two to six weeks, because we finish what exists instead of restarting it.
04 · Straight answers
The questions people actually ask.
Will you just tell us to rebuild?
Only when rebuilding is genuinely cheaper, and we'll show you that math rather than assert it. Rescue is usually the right call: the expensive parts already exist, they're just stranded.
What if the previous developer won't cooperate?
Common, and survivable. We work from what exists, rebuild only the pieces we can't reach, and run the custody transfer as a checklist so nothing depends on anyone's goodwill.
Our prototype was built with AI. Is that a problem?
No, and it's most of what arrives now. We review it like any inherited code: keep what's sound, harden what isn't, and put a human approval gate in front of anything that touches your customers.
What does it cost?
The audit is the easiest first yes, and it produces a fixed proposal for the rescue itself. Engagements are quoted individually; the proposal is the price.
Send us the last status email your developer sent you.
We'll tell you in fifteen minutes whether this is a rescue, what the shape of it looks like, and what we'd need from you. If we're not the right fit, you'll know that in fifteen minutes too.