PLATFORM BUILDS — WHEN YOU’VE OUTGROWN YOUR TOOLS
Your tools arefighting you.
The spreadsheet that quietly became your operation. The plugin stack that breaks when you look at it wrong. You didn’t choose that architecture — you accumulated it. We replace it with the operating system your operation deserves: planned before it’s priced, built in phases, owned by you outright.
We spent years building on the industry’s standard.
For a long time that meant WordPress. It runs a huge share of the internet, and for the right job we'll still recommend it. But every time a client’s operation got complex enough to matter, we hit the same walls.
Hierarchical permissions.
A membership organization needed permissions that followed its org chart — a leader who could see her own units and no one else’s.
WordPress had four flat roles.
Money that can’t half-move.
A client needed money to move atomically: out of one account, into another, every step on the ledger, nothing left half-finished when something failed mid-transaction.
WordPress had custom post types and crossed fingers.
Connected certifications.
An education platform needed courses tied to certifications tied to prerequisites, enforcing their own rules.
WordPress had a shelf of plugins, each solving ninety percent of the problem and fighting the others for the last ten.
We weren’t fighting our clients’ requirements. We were fighting our architecture. So we stopped fighting and started building.
Your patchwork of plugins and apps feels survivable. Until the day it doesn’t.
You already know the tax, because you pay it every week — the numbers below are archetypes; swap in your own. And underneath all of it, quietly, the thing you can’t unsee once you’ve seen it: you are one traffic spike — one good launch, one busy Monday, one bad day — from the whole arrangement falling over at once.
A change that should take an hour takes five days
plugins disagree on who owns the data — every editEvery outage is an $800 emergency
on the vendor’s schedule, not yours — per incidentPrices climb because leaving costs more than staying
vendor lock-in — yearlyOne traffic spike from the whole thing falling over
your best day is the one that breaks itThe fragility isn’t bad luck. It’s what assembled software is.
You don’t need a new website. You need an operating system.
Something that already knows how your organization is shaped, enforces its rules, and grows as you grow — instead of fighting you on all three.
We never ask anyone to bet their business on a promise.
So the first business we bet on Tome was our own. Before any client project, we installed it under Wabbit and ran our operation on it, live — the pages you’re reading, the course platform behind Wabbit EDU, the form at the bottom of this page. If it broke, it broke on us first.
Then we put it under real scale. Vanguard is a 700-member group that used to run on a dozen disconnected tools — a spreadsheet here, a plugin there, a SaaS subscription for the parts nothing else covered. Sound familiar?
We rebuilt the whole thing as one platform: real hierarchical command, a training academy with certifications, a double-entry financial ledger, the operations the group actually runs — all on one foundation, all speaking the same language.
The rebuild is the risk you’re actually weighing.
Nobody rips out the tools under a working business because they're annoying. They stay because the rebuild feels riskier than the rot: the migration that loses data, the cutover that drops sales, the half-finished replatform you heard about from someone who lived it.
So here’s one we did. The Modern Marketing System had outgrown its tools — website, learning academy, e-commerce, all of it, all at once. We rebuilt the whole operation and migrated it 100%: no student lost, no sale dropped, no dark week. The mechanism isn’t magic, it’s sequencing. The new platform gets built and proven beside the one you’re still running, and nothing cuts over until it’s ready to carry the load.
“I kicked off 2024 by spending three months completely rebuilding our website, Learning Academy, and e-commerce system. I couldn’t have done it without Wabbit’s patience, guidance, and hard work. If you’re looking for someone to build (or rebuild) your web presence, the Wabbits have my highest recommendation.”
Shawn TwingFounder, The Modern Marketing System
What an operating system actually means.
Not a feature list. The parts of your operation you already run every day — people, money, training, the work itself — rebuilt as one system that finally lets them talk to each other. That’s what we mean by modelling: teaching the platform how your operation actually works, once, instead of bending your operation to fit someone else’s software.
People and roles
every person, role, and reporting line, with permissions that follow your org chart instead of flattening it.
Courses and certifications
training tied to requirements, with progression rules that enforce themselves.
Money and the ledger
atomic transactions, real balances, an auditable trail of every movement.
The work itself
the operations and events your organization actually runs: scheduled, assigned, tracked.
The whole picture
dashboards that make the operation legible at a glance, not reassembled from six browser tabs every morning.
Who sees what
access shaped to your hierarchy, not a hierarchy bent to fit the software.
You own it. We run it.
Two ways in, depending on where you are. Either way, you own the platform and the source code outright — no lock-in, no hostage situation — and we keep it alive so it never rots.
- Core data model, built right
- The workflows that actually matter
- Launched on real architecture, not a plugin pile
- Fixed price, no moving number
- Your real operation modelled, not a template
- Hierarchy, money, training, operations
- Quoted from the Architecture Sprint, never guessed
- You own the platform and the code
You own the platform and the code. We keep it alive. Every platform we build ships with its retainer — required, alongside the build, ~15% of build value a year: security patches, platform updates, and steady evolution as your operation changes.
Ownership means you can fire us any day and take everything with you — the code, the data, the plan. The retainer’s purpose is to make sure neglect never gives you a reason to.
It’s what ends the $800-emergency-on-someone-else’s-schedule trap: your platform stays current, secure, and improving between crises instead of quietly decaying toward the next one. Unmaintained software rots. Yours won’t.
It starts with the Sprint.
You don’t commit $55K+ on a hunch. The Sprint is how you ask for the early verdict on everything this page just argued: a scoped, paid engagement that produces the real plan before the build — exact cost, phases, risks, and the data model: the map of how your operation’s information fits together, drawn from how you actually run. Build, don’t build, or not like this: whichever comes back, you keep the plan. The Sprint is where the Validation Laboratory — our practice for testing before we build — does its extraction work and designs the first test; the build keeps testing after that, phase by phase.
Map what you operate.
Your real workflows, roles, and the data underneath them.
→ The brief, agreedModel the data and risks.
The data model that fits how you actually run — and where it could bite.
→ The data model + risk mapScope cost and phases.
Exact build cost, phased, with the risks named.
→ Cost sheet + calendarBuild, or walk. Clean.
Proceed with a real plan, or leave with the architecture document. Fully credited if you proceed.
→ The decisionMany platform builds start life as a Wabbit site that outgrew itself; like the Sprint, a prior Static build credits toward the platform. Nothing you paid on the way up is wasted.
Could you just buy Tome and skip us?
Fair question — this page leans on Tome the whole way down. And for a lot of it, the answer is yes: the block library is open — some of it free — and the starter, the capacity plans, and the various business engines are all on the Tome page: you can run Tome without ever hiring us — if you want to do the work yourself.
What this page sells is the other path: we model your operation and shape the platform around it for you. That isn’t a product; it’s an engagement between your team and ours — we do the work with you, directly. No course, no upsell hiding behind the build.
Status: by design, not omission.
Under the hood. The exact parts.
Listed here because the technical buyer asks — never because it’s the pitch.
Common questions.
- Q.01Ownership
Do we own the platform and the code?
Yes — completely, from launch, and if you ever decide to leave, we help you take the whole thing with you. You own the platform and the source code outright. We keep it alive through the retainer, but ownership is always yours.
- Q.02Retainer
What does the retainer cost and cover?
The retainer keeps your platform alive: security patches, platform updates, and ongoing evolution as your needs change. Unmaintained software rots — yours won’t, and it ends the $800-per-emergency-fix trap. Ownership means you can fire us any day; the retainer means neglect will never be the reason. Terms: ~15% of build value per year, billed monthly.
- Q.03Migration
Can you rescue or migrate what we already have?
Usually, yes — and without the drama you’re bracing for. We assess what’s salvageable, keep what works, and rebuild what’s fighting you, beside the system you’re still running. Nothing cuts over until the replacement is proven; that’s how The Modern Marketing System moved — 100% migrated, no student lost, no sale dropped. The Architecture Sprint is the low-risk way to scope yours.
- Q.04Sprint
How does the Architecture Sprint work?
It’s a scoped, paid engagement that de-risks the decision before a $55K+ commitment: exact cost, phases, risks, and the data model for your build. $5,000, fixed, fully credited toward the build if you proceed. You get a real plan, not a sales pitch.
- Q.05Timeline
How long does a build take?
The Sprint takes roughly two weeks and produces the phased schedule with real dates. MVP builds run weeks to a few months. Full platforms are phased so the first working piece is in your hands early — not a year of silence followed by a reveal. We take on a handful of builds each quarter, on purpose, so new builds are scheduled about a quarter out — the Sprint’s cost sheet includes your start date.
- Q.06During the rebuild
What happens to our current site and data?
Nothing, until the new platform is ready to carry the load. We build beside what you run today: parallel build, staged cutover, the old system live until the new one has proven itself. Your data migrates on a rehearsed path, not a weekend hail-mary — rehearsed against a copy first, cut over only when the rehearsal is uneventful.
- Q.07Continuity
What happens if something happens to Wabbit?
You’d be fine, by design. You own the platform and the source code outright, the stack is standard TypeScript that any competent shop could run, and the handover documentation ships with the build. There’s also a written continuity policy — linked in the footer of every page. We plan to be here. You don’t have to bet on it.
Didn’t see yours? Send a scope note via the form below — we’ll read it and reply the same day.
Tell us what’s breaking. We’ll scope it.
No pitch deck. No discovery-call gauntlet. Tell us what’s failing about your current setup and we’ll come back with how we’d scope the fix — same day.
An honest working session about your operation — what’s breaking, what it’s costing, and what the platform that fixes it actually looks like. Book a working session →
FORM — SCOPE YOUR BUILD