Decision brief · 10 Sep 2026

Inherit their code,
or rebuild what we own.

The engagement is on an ownership footing. So the real question is which path is fastest, safest, and most in our control.

Prepared for Mick Olinik, CTO Companion to the build dossier

The call, up front

Rebuild. It's the fast move, not the slow one.

With the spec, content, and brand already in our hands and a CTO who ships at speed, rebuilding on infrastructure we own is the fastest to a working system, the most in our control, and the lowest risk. The conventional "rebuild takes months and a new team" math does not apply here.

Fastest

Building a focused scope beats auditing, detangling, learning, and babysitting an offshore codebase, then enforcing a handover that can stall.

Most control

Total ownership from line one. No handover to litigate, no accounts locked to the vendor.

Least risk

No inherited unknown debt. HIPAA-clean by design. No vendor-continuity exposure. Survivor and payment data on infrastructure we hold.

Why the usual math is wrong here

The expensive part is already done and owned.

SPECThe 111-minute kickoff plus transcript is a finished requirements document. The costliest, slowest part of custom software is deciding what to build. That is done.

ASSETSAll 30 pages of content, the vector brand masters, the program logic. Nothing to re-create, only to re-implement.

VELOCITYAn AI-native builder who ships production decks and sites fast changes the cost curve. Rebuild time is measured against our own throughput, not a vendor's.

SCOPEA rebuild is scoped to what we need, not the sprawling Business OS a template pushes. Less to build than what was sold.

How the options really compare

The matrix, corrected.

Dimension	A · Continue	B · Inherit in-house	C · Rebuild
Time to live	Medium	Handover drag	Fastest
Control	Low	High	Total
Real cost	Ongoing fees	Handover + learning	Our build time
HIPAA confidence	Unverified	Audit-bound	By design
Vendor dependency	High	Cut, after handover	None
Inherited debt	Theirs	Theirs	None

Once build velocity is the CTO's own, C stops being the slow option and becomes the one that wins nearly every row.

The three paths, reframed

One recommendation, two fallbacks.

Recommended

C · Rebuild

Take the spec, content, and brand; build fresh on stacks we own. Fastest and safest given our velocity.

The call

Fallback

B · Inherit in-house

Only if a look at the code reveals something genuinely worth keeping. Then take repo, cloud, keys, and own it.

Bridge only

A · Continue with Mydas

A short bridge while data moves, never the end state. It keeps survivor and donor data on a vendor cloud.

Rebuilding does not mean walking away empty

We still take the parts that matter.

A rebuild forfeits their code, which was never the valuable asset. Everything worth having transfers regardless, and most of it should be pulled Friday.

The data

Contact records, donor history, and the ~9,000 thrift-store contacts they planned to import. Get a full export; this is ours, not theirs.

The credentials

Reclaim Stripe, Twilio, QuickBooks, Square, Gusto, and the domain off conversionmarketingpros.com onto admin we own.

The spec and content

Already archived. The requirements, all 30 pages, the brand, the program rules. Our starting line.

The leverage

The unpaid half of the fee. If we rebuild, that money seeds the build instead of finishing theirs.

The one thing that keeps it fast

Build what we need, not the sprawl.

Rebuild stays the fast, low-risk path only under scope discipline. Mydas scoped an everything-platform. We need a focused core, shipped in slices.

Build first

The website (nearly free, we own the content), online giving, a lean donor and contact record, and the survivor intake path. The things that move money and serve people.

Defer or drop

The AI page builder, social-proof pop-ups, the full events and auction suite, deep marketing automation. Add only if a real need proves out.

Friday, under a rebuild plan

What to still demand.

1Full data exportContacts, donor history, anything already loaded. It is our data regardless of the path.Friday

2Reclaim every integration credentialMove Stripe, Twilio, QuickBooks, Square, Gusto, and DNS onto admin we own.Friday

3A quick look at the code, no commitmentOptional. Only to salvage anything genuinely reusable before we build clean.Optional

4Hold the balance as leverageTie remaining payment to the data and credential handover, not to their code.Leverage

The bottom line

We own the hard part. We build the rest.

The spec, the content, the brand, and the build speed are already ours. That is what makes rebuild the fast, controlled, low-risk move, not the last resort.

Take the data and the credentials Friday. Leave the code. Ship a focused core on infrastructure we own end to end.

Inherit their code,or rebuild what we own.