Real messes, and the systems we built for them

The mess

• Member records sat in an old database, while renewals and billing ran on MembershipWorks, a paid SaaS platform.
• Event registration and member data lived inside those systems, out of reach of the staff's day-to-day tools.
• davischamber.org ran on WordPress, separate from everything else.

The system

• Chamber HQ: members, renewals, invoicing and billing, events with check-in, a directory console, a sponsorship pipeline, communications and a staff request board.
• A member portal with sign-in by magic link or password, saved cards, autopay and event vendor paperwork.
• Card payments on the chamber's own merchant account.
• A full rebuild of davischamber.org off WordPress, with a member directory and events.

Built with React, TypeScript, Hono and D1 on Cloudflare.

The outcome

• The first working version was built overnight, 6 to 7 July 2026.
• Card payments opened to members on 11 August 2026. Within two days, members were saving their own cards and turning on autopay without being asked.
• Every autopay charge waits for a person at the chamber to approve it.
• An online membership application that arrived at 3:55pm was a fully set-up member by 8:42pm the same day.
• Vendor agreements, insurance certificates and load-in packets for the 4th annual Family Fun Fest were handled online through the member portal.
• Staff have filed more than 300 requests through the HQ request board.
• All 37 board and ambassador logins were tested end to end before the staff invitation went out.
• The rebuilt davischamber.org crawled at 462 pages with zero broken pages.
• HQ runs alongside MembershipWorks while the chamber decides on a full cutover.

Start on your own mess with a Teardown

The mess

• velocityislandpark.com ran on WordPress, with bookings through Xola and automations through Zapier.
• A May 2026 audit recorded "no conversion tracking, booking measurement impossible."
• Open questions for the owner lived in a shared Google Sheet nobody could answer from reliably.

The system

• velocityislandpark.com rebuilt from scratch as a fast static site on Cloudflare, live since 29 March 2026.
• Tracking on every booking click, phone call, email and form, so the owner can see what sells.
• Contact and employment application forms with spam protection, and job postings marked up for Google Jobs.
• Park closures scheduled by date, so the site updates itself.
• A case board in place of the Google Sheet: the one person with the answers gets a private link and replies from a phone.
• A revenue and attendance audit built on the park's own booking, sales and weather history.
• A custom booking platform to replace Xola, built as a prototype and not yet switched on.

Built with Static site on Cloudflare Pages with Pages Functions; case board on D1.

The outcome

• 9,578 booking clicks tracked since launch, plus 233 form submissions and 265 phone clicks.
• 159 job applicants arrived through Google Jobs.
• Search impressions up 32.2% year over year; average desktop ranking moved from 35.5 to 11.7.
• 12 blog articles earned 121,350 search impressions and 1,059 clicks in 90 days.
• A schedule change went live 53 minutes after the park emailed it, and closures are now automated by date.
• At least $80 a month in hosting and about $30 a month in Zapier automation eliminated.

Traffic figures as of 22 August 2026.

Start on your own mess with a Teardown

The mess

• The Silos, a waterfront event venue, ran on an old WordPress site.
• The lakeside restaurant was renamed Costa Fuego, but had no site under the new name.
• The old Edgewater Eatery domain kept serving the complete old site, where "Costa Fuego" appeared zero times, while pulling in about 5,700 search impressions and 319 clicks every 90 days on searches like "restaurants woodland ca".

The system

• silosvip.com: a design-led rebuild for weddings, quinceaneras and corporate events, live on Cloudflare since 31 March 2026, with 68 real venue photos carried over and tour requests sent straight to the venue team.
• costafuego.com: real HTML menus, private event inquiries, full schema and analytics.
• edgewatereatery.com: every old address now 301-redirects to the matching costafuego.com page, so the old domain's search traffic and authority land on the new name.

Built with Static sites on Cloudflare Pages with Pages Functions for forms.

The outcome

• costafuego.com researched, built and launched in one day, 22 August 2026.
• Within days it averaged position 1.2 in Google for "costa fuego woodland ca" and had taken 72 clicks on that search.
• First week: 229 visitors and 432 page views, with the menu the most visited page.
• The roughly 3.5 people a day landing on the old restaurant name now arrive at Costa Fuego.

Search figures as of late August 2026.

Start on your own mess with a Teardown

The mess

• The festival site lived on Wix: 30 pages, 157 posts and 10 photo galleries.
• Sponsors, volunteers and booth vendors were handled outside the website.
• In August 2026 the director asked for one meaningful leap forward for the festival this year.

The system

• Front end: a new public site with a Halloweekend schedule, a day-of "happening now" page, 15 event pages, a year by year history and 12 sourced feature stories.
• Back end, Festival HQ: sponsor tiers, pledges, benefits, logos and invoices.
• Volunteers: shifts, waitlists, waivers and day-of QR check-in.
• Booth vendors: permits, insurance, and a park map where vendors pick their own booth.
• Site content and change requests managed from the same portal, so the festival team updates it without a developer.

Built with One Cloudflare Worker with D1 and R2; Festival HQ in React.

The outcome

• Live on zombiebikeparade.com on 27 August 2026, 12 days after the ask.
• The director was working through a live punch list less than a week after asking.
• 30 pages, 157 posts, 10 galleries and more than 3,900 photos migrated, with a 301 redirect for every old address.
• Nearly 700 change requests handled through Festival HQ.
• In September 2026 the code, hosting and domain moved into the festival's own accounts, so the festival runs it on its own.

Start on your own mess with a Teardown

The mess

• Leads, bookings, contracts, invoicing, payments and crew ran on VSCO Workspace (formerly Tave).
• A general-purpose tool, shaped around someone else's business.

The system

• Pipeline and follow-ups, with quotes that become contracts and invoices on one branded link.
• A crew portal for assignments, briefings, check-in and time.
• Post-event delivery, and a review gate on every change that touches money or sign-in.

Built with Next.js, Supabase and Vercel.

The outcome

• Live at ops.actionflipbooks.com as the company's system of record.
• The full booking history imported: more than 2,000 events, every one with an inquiry date, back to 2016.
• The actionflipbooks.com contact form posts straight into it.

Start on your own mess with a Teardown