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For mid-sized businesses still running on Visual FoxPro, Visual Basic applications, aging Access databases, or custom systems built by someone who’s no longer reachable. Where every change costs more than the last one because nobody understands what’s already there.
The system was held together by one person’s knowledge. They retired, left the company, or are otherwise unreachable. The code stayed. Nobody else can read it.
The vendor announced they’re done. They’ll keep it running for now, but no security updates, no new features. You’re running your business on a clock you don’t control.
Each tweak takes longer than the one before it because the codebase is layers of band-aids on top of band-aids. The team that maintains it is shrinking. The hourly rate isn’t.
Modern developers don’t know Visual FoxPro, Paradox, or the 1990s frameworks your system runs on. The few who do are expensive and retiring.
When the system is exposing you to risk, the right move is usually one of three: a different off-the-shelf, a modernized version of what you have, or a custom rebuild. We’ll tell you which one fits.
“I’m not learning another system just to have it sunset on us in two years.”
— OWNER, CONSTRUCTION CONTRACTOR
Most legacy modernization projects we run end up rebuilt as custom ERP systems. The legacy system was usually an ERP that aged out, and patching it costs more than starting fresh on the right foundation. Most software firms sell a clean rewrite because that’s how they get paid. We’ll walk you through what that path looks like, and tell you honestly if a simpler move serves you better. For the modernizations we run, four things change when you work with us.
Before we touch the code, we identify the one outcome the modernization should produce. Every migration decision aligns against it. The result is a path forward you can defend, not a yearlong rewrite that ships nothing in the first six months.
A flat monthly rate gets you a senior US development team. Scale up or down as the migration demands shift. No hourly billing, no surprise invoices when something turns out harder than expected.
When the legacy system breaks or a question comes up, you reach a senior developer who knows your codebase, in under sixty minutes*, during business hours. Not a ticket queue. Not a junior on rotation.
*In practice, the average is just a few minutes.
If, in the first sixty days, you decide we’re not the right partner, we refund your first month. As far as we know, no one else in this industry offers this. We do because we’ve never had to honor it.
From the first call to the moment your team is using the modernized system. Each step has a clear scope, a clear price, and a clear way out if it isn’t working.
A thirty-minute working call. We diagnose where your old system is exposing you, what depends on it, and what the modernization path actually looks like. If a simpler answer serves you better, we’ll point you in that direction. You leave with a written assessment either way.
A scoped engagement to migrate the highest-risk piece first. We pick the part of the legacy system most likely to fail or expose the business, modernize it, and prove the approach. The rest of the system keeps running while we work. If at any point in the first sixty days you decide we’re not a fit, we refund your first month.
If you’re happy with the migration approach, the engagement continues under the same monthly subscription. We migrate the rest of the system, feature by feature. The old system runs alongside the new one until everything has moved, with no operational downtime. You own the modernized code from day one.
Each of these clients was running on technology that had aged out from underneath them. We replaced what no longer fit, feature by feature, with no operational downtime.
Misty had spent two years trying to find developers who could untangle four decades of legacy data without documentation. We rebuilt the system around the way her team actually worked, and shipped it eighteen days after launch.
“They made us feel valued and respected, with the intention of building a lasting partnership rather than just collecting a paycheck.”
Their core operations ran on a Visual FoxPro database older than the developers maintaining it. We rebuilt it on a modern stack, then migrated the business one feature at a time so daily operations never paused. The legacy system is being retired piece by piece.
Read the full case study →Amy was running her clinic on fifteen different off-the-shelf programs that were never built to work together. Daily auditing. Constant data entry. We replaced all of them with one custom system designed around her actual workflow.
“Every part of this project has been smooth, with clear communication and frequent check-ins throughout.”
Most legacy code we see has no documentation. We start by reading the code, talking to the people who use it daily, and reconstructing what the system actually does versus what it was supposed to do. The two are usually different. We document what we find as we go, so the modernized version comes with the documentation the original system never had.
Old data formats are almost always readable, even when they look like they aren’t. We’ve worked with Visual FoxPro databases, custom binary formats, and Access databases nobody had touched in fifteen years. Sometimes we extract the data through the original system’s export. Sometimes we read the raw files directly. Either way, the data comes out.
Most clients see the highest-risk feature migrated inside three to four months. Full system retirement typically takes nine to eighteen months depending on complexity. We migrate feature by feature so the business sees value early and never has to flip a switch on a single big-bang launch day.
Yes. The old system stays live until the new one has fully replaced it. We migrate one feature at a time and run them side by side until the team is confident in the new version. There’s no operational downtime and no go-live weekend where everything breaks at once.
If a modern off-the-shelf system fits your business, we’ll tell you so on the assessment call. The consultation exists to figure out which path makes sense, not to push you into a custom rebuild. For some businesses the answer is migrating to a configured off-the-shelf platform. We’ll point you to one if that’s the right move.
We run the old database and the new database side by side. The old database keeps dumping into the new one continuously, so as your team starts using the new system, the data stays in sync. Nothing has to switch over at once. We validate that nothing’s missing, the team uses the new version in production, and once everything checks out, the old database gets retired. The dual-database approach means no data is lost in the move.
Refactoring keeps the existing system and improves it from the inside. Rewriting builds a new system to replace the old one. For most legacy systems we see, refactoring isn’t an option because the underlying technology no longer has support. When refactoring works, we’ll tell you. When it doesn’t, we’ll tell you that too.
A thirty-minute working session. We listen to what your old system runs, where the team is afraid it’ll break, and what depends on it staying up.
If modernization is the right move, we’ll tell you. If a different off-the-shelf system or a contained refactor solves it, we’ll tell you that too, even if it’s not us.
A written assessment, including our honest recommendation and (if modernization is the right move) the migration plan. Free to keep, whether or not we work together.