SaaS Project Management Platform for a UK Tech Startup
Tech Startup, United Kingdom · Software / SaaS
0.9s
Page load time
Down from 6.8s average
-52%
Onboarding drop-off
From 70% to 34%
+340%
Monthly active users
12 months post-launch
The Challenge
A fast-growing UK-based project management startup had outgrown their initial MVP — a collection of stitched-together no-code tools and a basic Rails app built by a freelancer. As their customer count crossed 2,000, the cracks became impossible to ignore: page load times averaged 6.8 seconds, the mobile experience was unusable, and onboarding drop-off was above 70%. Their engineering team of two couldn't keep pace with feature requests while also fighting fires on the existing infrastructure. They came to us three months before a critical investor demo with a clear brief: rebuild the core product on a modern stack, fast.
Our Solution
We architected a full-stack rebuild using Next.js 15 on the frontend and a Node.js/PostgreSQL backend with a clean REST API. We introduced real-time collaboration via WebSockets, a drag-and-drop Kanban board built entirely in-house (no heavy third-party library), and a notification system that replaced the client's previous reliance on polling. The database was migrated from a single-server MySQL setup to a managed PostgreSQL cluster with read replicas, reducing query times by over 80%. We worked in two-week sprints, shipped a private beta in week six, and handed over a fully tested production system in week fourteen — one week ahead of the investor deadline.
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