GRNDHOUSE
Hurricane Studio rescued GRNDHOUSE from a stalled agency build, rebuilt the live fitness platform from scratch, scaled it to thousands of users, then acquired it when the founders moved on.
The Situation
”We’re 90% done” – the most dangerous words in software development.
GRNDHOUSE came to us with a story we had heard before. Their agency had been working on the platform for months. Every update said the same thing: almost there, just finishing up, 90% complete. It never shipped.
When we assessed the codebase, we found what we usually find in these situations: a project that held together in demos but fell apart under real conditions. Core functionality was incomplete. What existed was fragile. The 90% figure was, at best, wishful thinking.
The founders had already burned through significant runway waiting for a launch that never came. They needed someone who would tell them the truth about where things actually stood, and what it would genuinely take to get to production.
The Challenge
A fitness platform built on video streaming is unforgiving. “Almost working” is not good enough.
GRNDHOUSE delivered on-demand strength workouts: professionally produced classes that members streamed and followed along with in real time. The video had to play flawlessly, every time. High-quality streaming, scheduling, payments, and user management all had to work simultaneously, reliably, under load. This was not a product where you could launch with rough edges and iterate. The core experience had to work from day one.
The existing codebase could not get there. We had two options: patch it or replace it. We chose to rebuild the critical paths, video streaming infrastructure, payment processing, and scheduling, from scratch, while salvaging the UI components and user management that were functional. It was not a complete rewrite, but it was close.
What We Did
We gave them an honest assessment, rebuilt what needed rebuilding, and shipped every week.
First, we gave the founders a clear picture of where things actually stood. Not a softened version, not a project plan for patching the existing code. The truth. Their agency had been saying “almost done” for months. We told them it was not.
Then we rebuilt. Video streaming infrastructure from scratch, designed for reliable high-quality playback under load. Payment processing that would not fail mid-transaction. Scheduling that worked across time zones. We shipped to production every week, real usable progress, not demo environments.
The founders could see working software at every stage. When things did not work, we fixed them immediately.
The Outcome
Launched, scaled, and then something unexpected happened.
| Outcome | Detail |
|---|---|
| Launch | Platform went live on a realistic timeline, not a series of “almost” dates |
| Scale | Thousands of users streaming on-demand workouts |
| Reliability | Stable streaming, payments, and scheduling under real load |
| Surprise | When the founders moved on, we acquired the platform rather than shut it down |
The Twist
We believed in it enough to buy it.
When the original founders eventually decided to move on to new projects, GRNDHOUSE faced an uncertain future. Normally, that is the end: a startup that did not reach escape velocity, a platform that gets quietly shut down.
But GRNDHOUSE had real users, real instructors, and a genuine community of people who used it regularly. Shutting it down felt wrong.
So we acquired it. We operate GRNDHOUSE today, not as a client engagement, but as owners. We maintain the platform, handle support, and continue running the community. It generates real revenue. It has real users. It matters to them.
That is also what we mean when we say we act like owners. Sometimes that is literal.
The Lesson
”90% complete” usually means “we do not know how to finish this.”
The last 10% is where the hard problems live: real-world integrations, edge cases, production reliability, load. Any agency can build something that works in a demo. Getting to a product that works for real users is a different kind of work.
If your agency has been saying “almost done” for more than a few weeks, pay attention. It is a pattern, not a coincidence.
Sound familiar ?
If you're dealing with a failed agency project or a product that isn't working, we've been here before. Let's talk about what it would take to fix it.