01
Stabilize & deploy
Stabilize the existing platform and fix the deployment process.
Case study
Xpo Press
How Huboxt stabilized an inherited ASP.NET MVC media and advertising platform for the gem-show industry, fixed its deployments, shipped revenue-driving features and a modern UI, then rebuilt it from the ground up on .NET Core and Next.js with a clean, maintainable architecture.
- Client
- Xpo Press
- Timeline
- ~1 year + full rebuild
- Services
- Stabilization, features, re-architecture
- Industry
- Media / events / advertising
Product preview
The challenge
Xpo Press is a public platform backed by an admin panel: visitors browse shows, vendors, products, guides and news, while logged-in staff configure all of that public content behind the scenes. The product was real and in active use — but the software running it had problems.
We inherited an ASP.NET MVC application hosted on Azure that wasn't stable, with a deployment process that didn't work cleanly. Underneath, the database had been designed for very specific cases rather than as a general model, with a great deal of hardcoded logic layered on top. The result was a system that was difficult to maintain and reason about — to the point where even the client no longer had a clear picture of how all of it worked.
The work fell into two parts: first, make the existing platform stable, deployable and more valuable to the business; then, once it was under control, rebuild it properly on a foundation that could be maintained and extended.
Goals
02
Revenue features
Ship features that add value to the business and its advertising revenue.
03
Modern UI
Modernize the user interface.
04
Clean architecture
Replace the problem-specific data model and hardcoded logic with a clean, maintainable architecture.
05
Preserve structure
Preserve the public platform and the admin panel that configures it throughout.
Our approach
We worked in two phases: first stabilize the inherited ASP.NET MVC platform, fix deployments, ship commercial features and modernize the UI; then rebuild properly on .NET Core and Next.js with a clean data model and maintainable architecture.
01
Phase 1 — stabilize
Stabilized the inherited ASP.NET MVC application and fixed the deployment process so changes could ship cleanly and predictably.
02
Phase 1 — add value
Built custom advertising banners, video support, and Google Analytics integration — new ways to monetize and the data to understand what was working.
03
Phase 1 — modernize UI
Significantly modernized the UI, making the platform cleaner and more contemporary.
04
Phase 2 — rebuild
After about a year, rebuilt in full on .NET Core and Next.js — a clean data model and maintainable architecture in place of problem-specific design and accumulated hardcode.
What we did
Two phases over roughly a year — stabilization and commercial features on the legacy stack, then a full rebuild on modern foundations.
- 01
Stabilized & fixed deployments
Brought the inherited ASP.NET MVC application to a reliable state and established a clean, predictable deployment process.
- 02
Revenue-driving features
Custom advertising banners, video support, and Google Analytics integration — features that helped grow advertising revenue and gave the business visibility into performance.
- 03
Modernized UI
A significantly cleaner, more modern interface across the public platform.
- 04
.NET Core + Next.js rebuild
A full rebuild with a properly designed data model and a maintainable architecture, replacing the problem-specific database design and hardcoded logic.
- 05
Public + admin preserved
Throughout both phases, the public-facing platform and the admin panel — where staff configure all public content — remained intact and central to the design.
Results
01
Stable & deployable
Reliable operation and a clean deployment process, replacing an unstable inherited system.
02
New revenue & measurement
Custom banners, video and Google Analytics gave the business additional monetization and the data to optimize it, helping increase revenue.
03
Modern interface
A cleaner, more contemporary UI for the public platform.
04
Maintainable codebase
The .NET Core + Next.js rebuild replaced a problem-specific data model and heavy hardcode with an architecture the business can understand and extend.
05
Foundation for the future
From a system even the client struggled to reason about, to a properly designed platform ready to grow on.
“The sequencing was the point. Rather than rebuild immediately, we first made the existing platform stable, deployable and more profitable — fixing the deployment process and shipping advertising features and analytics that added real commercial value within the first year. Only once the system was under control did we rebuild it properly on .NET Core and Next.js, trading a problem-specific data model and years of hardcode for a clean, maintainable architecture. The business kept running and earning throughout, and came out the other side with a platform it can finally understand and build on.”
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