RAPID Rebuild of Subscription Platform Restores Growth and Investor Confidence.
FAST FACTS
Industry:
CONSUMER SERVICES
Specialty:
Digital subscription and membership commerce
Solution:
End-to-end rebuild of failed platform and billing architecture
Users:
Marketing, product, and customer experience teams
ABOUT THE PROJECT
A venture-backed digital subscription startup was facing a full stall. Their initial MVP, built by a third-party vendor, had failed under real customer load—causing high churn, refund requests, and missed growth targets. Despite strong market demand and clear product-market fit, their tech stack couldn’t scale, and investors were growing anxious.
PROJECT IDEA
- Replace the failed MVP with a subscription platform that could scale across pricing tiers, geographies, and customer segments.
- Redesign onboarding, billing, and retention workflows to reduce churn and increase lifetime value.
- Establish clear delivery rhythms and system health visibility to restore internal trust and execution clarity.
PROJECT CHALLENGES
- MVP Failure: The original platform failed under modest load—billing logic broke, customers were double-charged, and UX degraded fast.
- High Churn and Refunds: Subscription cancellations skyrocketed, driven by broken experiences and inconsistent billing cycles.
- No Operational Visibility: Founders and investors had no dashboards or reporting to understand growth, health, or drop-offs.
- Team Burnout: The internal team was stuck managing support tickets instead of growth—morale was low, and the roadmap was frozen.
RESULTS
- 34% reduction in subscriber churn post-relaunch.
- Relaunched full platform in less than 60 days, restoring roadmap and revenue momentum.
- Established investor-ready reporting across MRR, CAC, LTV, and retention cohorts.
- Built a foundation for multi-tier plans, trials, discounts, and upsells.
BUSINESS CHALLENGES
The company had proven demand, a great brand story, and a fast-growing waitlist. But the product failed to deliver. The original vendor promised a launch-ready platform and delivered an unstable prototype. Customers couldn’t complete signups. Billing failed randomly. Trials never converted. And customer service was overwhelmed.
What was once a growth story had become a liability. Founders were burning cash managing failure, not fueling growth. The board was losing patience. Without a stable, scalable subscription engine, the company would miss the moment entirely.
WHY SUBSCRIPTION BRANDS TRUST COGNATIV?
Cognativ helps subscription and DTC platforms avoid the trap of flashy MVPs that can’t scale. From billing infrastructure to customer journey orchestration, we build systems that work on day one—and keep working at scale. Whether you’re recovering from a vendor implosion or building for the next 10,000 users, Cognativ’s RAPID framework ensures speed without sacrificing stability.
MVP FAILURE
The outsourced build failed during onboarding surges—crashing at 100 concurrent users and corrupting billing data.
HIGH CHURN AND REFUNDS
One in three customers canceled or issued chargebacks due to broken flows and billing errors.
NO OPERATIONAL VISIBILITY
Leadership couldn’t see how many active users they had, let alone what was working or failing.
TEAM BURNOUT
Engineers were fighting fires; CX was apologizing hourly; the roadmap had stalled out completely.
NO TESTING OR STAGING
Changes were pushed directly to prod—often breaking key flows and causing cascading issues.
STALLED GROWTH NARRATIVE
Investors lost confidence due to missed targets, unclear metrics, and technical instability.
THE SOLUTION
Cognativ applied the RAPID methodology to rebuild the platform, restore delivery integrity, and reignite growth.
- Phase 1: Conducted a forensic teardown of the vendor-built system. Identified billing, user auth, and retention flaws. Developed a replacement plan using Cognativ’s SmartSaaS™ micro-kernel to support modular billing, trial logic, and onboarding workflows.
- Phase 2: Delivered a full relaunch within 60 days, including rebuilt UX, multi-tier plan support, and infrastructure monitoring. Introduced dashboards for subscriber health, churn prediction, and campaign attribution.
- Architecture: Built for scale from day one. The system used service-based billing modules, retention analytics, A/B-ready onboarding flows, and customer service hooks that reduced escalation by 50%.
HOW RAPID WAS USED...
"“Every startup hits chaos. The trick is knowing what to fix first—and moving fast enough to matter. RAPID gave this team the structure and confidence to deliver again.” "
– Ali Davachi, Cognativ Founder
What is the RAPID Framework?
RAPID—Research, Analyze, Plan, Implement, Decide—is the system Cognativ uses to turn chaos into progress. Built by Ali Davachi and trusted by VC-backed and enterprise firms alike, RAPID ensures teams align on outcomes, sequence execution clearly, and rebuild credibility fast. Detailed in RAPID Transformation: An Outcomes-Based Approach to Drive Results, it’s built for speed, clarity, and results under pressure.
RESULTS OBTAINED
Cognativ was brought in after the original system collapsed. Using the RAPID transformation framework, we rebuilt the core subscription platform from scratch—fixing billing logic, UX issues, and infrastructure gaps. The company relaunched within weeks, cut churn by 34%, and closed their next round of funding with confidence in their delivery capabilities.
Churn Reduction
The rebuilt platform gave users a smoother, more trustworthy experience—reducing cancellations and chargebacks.
Time to Relaunch
From teardown to live system, Cognativ delivered a production-ready rebuild in less than two months.
Reporting & Metrics
Built dashboards for CAC, LTV, MRR, trial conversions, and churn—powering investor updates and growth planning.
Built to Scale
The new platform supports plan expansion, upsells, geo-segmentation, and direct customer support integrations.
IMMEDIATE BENEFITS
- Reduced Refunds: Clean billing and transparent UX stopped chargebacks and escalations.
- Team Relief: Internal teams could refocus on roadmap and growth, not support chaos.
- Investor Confidence: Transparent metrics and delivery restored board trust.
- Customer Retention: Better onboarding flows and smart trial logic improved activation rates.
ONGOING BENEFITS
- Cognativ continues to support rollout of new plan tiers and affiliate/referral workflows.
- System uptime is consistently above 99.98%, with real-time monitoring across usage and revenue flow.
- Product and marketing teams now deploy tests weekly—without developer intervention.
- The platform has become the blueprint for new launches within the client’s portfolio of services.