Rent A Friend · Social Networking (Peer-to-Peer) · USA
$120,000 a Month Was Already There. The Platform Just Couldn't Collect It.
Exclolab fully modernized Rent A Friend's legacy platform — migrating from an obsolete Kohana codebase to a serverless Laravel + Vue.js architecture — recovering $120,000/month in lost subscription revenue, cutting search times by 95%, and reducing user bounce rate from 60–70% to 20%.
recovered subscription revenue (client confirmed)
Location
🇺🇸 USA
Type of Work
Digital Product
Monthly revenue recovered
$120K
Faster search — 30+ sec → under 500ms
95%
Delivery
6 months, 3 iterations, zero downtime for existing users — and $120,000/month in revenue waiting on the other side
Rent A Friend — Platform Screenshot
Coming soon
The Situation Before
What the Client Came In With
"Our existing website is slow and crashing. We need it rebuilt — same features, just working properly."
The site wasn't just slow — it was built on a brittle custom PHP codebase (Kohana, an abandoned framework) with no separation between business logic and presentation. Every new feature required touching five files. The entire payment stack ran on PayPal only — 6,000 active users couldn't subscribe because the billing system simply didn't work. $120,000/month was sitting there, uncollected, every month.
The Turning Point
What Exclolab Found
The site wasn't just slow — it was built on a brittle custom PHP codebase (Kohana, an abandoned framework) with no separation between business logic and presentation. Every new feature required touching five files. The entire payment stack ran on PayPal only — 6,000 active users couldn't subscribe because the billing system simply didn't work. $120,000/month was sitting there, uncollected, every month.
The Approach
How Exclolab Worked
We started with a Discovery audit of the existing codebase and support ticket history. The top 3 member complaints mapped directly to 3 missing UX flows: profile verification visibility, booking status tracking, and payment clarity. We rebuilt the platform on Laravel + Vue.js with Inertia.js, added Meilisearch for sub-500ms search, migrated to serverless infrastructure via Laravel Vapor, and delivered across 3 iterations while keeping the live platform accessible throughout.
The Solution
What Was Built
We started with a Discovery audit of the existing codebase and support ticket history. The top 3 member complaints mapped directly to 3 missing UX flows: profile verification visibility, booking status tracking, and payment clarity. We rebuilt the platform on Laravel + Vue.js with Inertia.js, added Meilisearch for sub-500ms search, migrated to serverless infrastructure via Laravel Vapor, and delivered across 3 iterations while keeping the live platform accessible throughout.
| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Backend | Laravel PHP |
| Frontend | Vue.js with Inertia.js |
| Database | MySQL |
| Search Engine | Meilisearch |
| Payments | Stripe + PayPal |
| Hosting | Laravel Vapor (AWS Serverless) |
| File Storage | AWS S3 |
| CI/CD | GitHub Actions |
The Results
What Changed
Monthly revenue recovered
Faster search — 30+ sec → under 500ms
Bounce rate reduction
The founder spends 90% less time on member support issues. The platform handles thousands of monthly bookings without intervention. New features ship in days, not weeks. Rent A Friend expanded from the Netherlands to 3 additional European markets on the same codebase.
Client Voice
In Their Own Words
Our app felt like a relic of the past. Users complained about slow searches, and we couldn't scale or even fix simple bugs. We were losing money every month, and new development was nearly impossible.
— Rent A Friend Client, Pre-Engagement FeedbackThis isn't just a performance fix — it's a complete business transformation. Now, we're actually ready to scale and make money.
— Rent A Friend Client, Post-Launch FeedbackThis project wasn't just a fix — it unlocked our ability to scale and generate revenue. Now, we can focus on growth instead of firefighting issues.
— Rent A Friend Client, Business Growth FeedbackTechnical Deep Dive
The Stack That Powered This
| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Backend | Laravel PHP |
| Frontend | Vue.js with Inertia.js |
| Database | MySQL |
| Search Engine | Meilisearch |
| Payments | Stripe + PayPal |
| Hosting | Laravel Vapor (AWS Serverless) |
| File Storage | AWS S3 |
| CI/CD | GitHub Actions |
Engagement Timeline
How This Was Delivered
Iteration 1
Discovery & system audit, architecture assessment, Meilisearch search rebuild prioritized for immediate impact
Iteration 2
Full-stack migration (Kohana → Laravel), Vue.js + Inertia.js frontend, Stripe integration, geolocation search, UI/UX overhaul, Laravel Vapor infrastructure migration
Iteration 3
Documentation, team training, CI/CD pipelines, post-launch review and optimization cycle
Next Phase
Premium features, AI-powered matching, enhanced analytics
Planned6 months, 3 iterations, zero downtime for existing users — and $120,000/month in revenue waiting on the other side.
Work with Exclolab
Your Platform Might Have the Same Root Cause
Rent A Friend didn't have a demand problem or a product problem — $120,000 a month was already there, already earned, just sitting uncollected because the technology underneath the platform couldn't handle it. If any part of that sounds familiar — whether it's a legacy system that's become impossible to maintain, revenue you can see but can't capture, or users you're losing to performance — the first conversation with Exclolab isn't a sales call. It's the same audit process Rent A Friend went through: mapping what's actually broken before recommending anything to fix it.