FanUp needed a configurable product that could support live-event promotions, SMS, payments, reporting, and high-pressure campaign traffic. Hatchery rebuilt the platform and continues to support it.
FanUp 1.0 was already live when Hatchery became involved. It could run campaigns, but the outsourced codebase was difficult to change, prone to bugs, and expensive to operate. FanUp needed a product foundation that could match how its business actually worked: different customers, campaign types, brands, entry methods, rewards, and legal requirements.
During an event, the platform has to absorb traffic, capture participant data, send messages, apply promotion rules, present terms, generate rewards, and process payments. If the system fails during that window, the opportunity may be gone. Reliability, monitoring, and operational support had to be part of the product from the start.
The first step was deciding whether the inherited platform was worth saving. The review found that continued patching would preserve the same cost, architecture, and delivery risks. Hatchery recommended a rebuild, then carried the work through product strategy, software development, UI/UX, DevSecOps, releases, and long-term maintenance.
| Category | Before | After Hatchery |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Outsourced build that was difficult to modify. | SaaS-enabled, multi-tenant, and built for configuration. |
| Hosting | Inefficient Heroku environment costing thousands per month. | AWS-backed infrastructure designed to scale with usage. |
| Flexibility | Hard to adapt for each customer. | Configurable workflows across brands, events, and promotion types. |
| Payments | Not integrated. | Stripe and RanchPayments, including Text-to-Donate. |
| Messaging | Not built in. | Two-way SMS through AWS Pinpoint. |
| Live-event reliability | Not built for high-intensity stadium traffic. | 99%+ availability SLA supporting live-event use. |
Strategy, design, code, integrations, infrastructure, and operations move together so the product can launch and keep serving customers.
Tools for events, promotions, entry paths, messages, rewards, legal terms, reporting, and brand-specific workflows.
Stripe, RanchPayments, Text-to-Donate, two-way AWS Pinpoint SMS, and REST interfaces for outside integrations.
AWS infrastructure, monitoring, DevSecOps, and ongoing support for a product used during time-sensitive events.
The old platform made each change slower and riskier. A rebuild gave FanUp a cleaner foundation for future releases.
Hatchery built configurable rules, branding, messages, rewards, and terms so FanUp did not need a separate application for every promotion.
Monitoring, infrastructure, and support were part of the product plan because the software has to hold up while an event is live.
FanUp supports interactive promotions across sports, beverage, retail, and entertainment. Public examples include work connected to PBR, Heineken, Red Bull, the San Francisco Giants, Safeway, Chevron, the Sacramento Kings, the Miami Dolphins, KeyBank, the Colorado Avalanche, the Buffalo Sabres, Teton Ridge, and Polaris. The platform supports instant-win games, sweepstakes, surveys, seat upgrades, Text-to-Donate, voting, QR entry, SMS entry, email entry, notifications, rewards, and reporting.
FanUp shows what a real platform rescue requires. Hatchery did not simply replace old code. The team reworked the architecture, campaign tools, messaging, payments, and operating environment, then supported the product through multiple releases.
Hatchery is an extension of our team. The moment we started working with them, there was an immediate lift in our ability to meet client demands, and we also increased our product offerings.
These logos represent FanUp customer and campaign brands, not Hatchery's broader client roster.
The media below shows the product in the context that mattered most: real promotions, real fans, real brands, and live moments where the system had to keep moving.
Ryan Ricket, CEO of Fanup, talks about Fanup and the platform.
Useful because it explains the business and product value in the customer's own words.
FanUp live-event promotion footage from an in-stadium Can-Am giveaway.
Useful because it shows the platform in the real environment it was built to support.
Text-to-Donate
KeyBank and Colorado Avalanche
KeyBank and the Colorado Avalanche used layered incentives to make a planned philanthropy campaign more participatory and increase fan involvement.
Open
Mobile fan experience
Miami Dolphins SOS
The Miami Dolphins used a text-in SOS campaign to create a tailored mobile interaction for fans during the event.
Open
Sampling campaign
Heineken 0.0 and Miami Dolphins
Heineken 0.0 and the Miami Dolphins used FanUp to support Brew of the 4th Quarter sampling while adding concession activity and CRM entries.
Open
Yes. FanUp was already live when Hatchery became involved. Hatchery assessed the existing product, recommended the responsible path, rebuilt the platform, and stayed involved through ongoing releases.
Hatchery reviews the code, architecture, infrastructure costs, product goals, and risk. With FanUp, continued patching would have preserved the same bugs, cost issues, and delivery drag, so a rebuild made more sense. That is not Hatchery's default preference. Large, complex systems take time to replace and carry real delivery risk, so we resist and debate rebuild recommendations before making them. We recommend starting over only when repairing the existing foundation would create more cost, drag, and risk than rebuilding it responsibly.
Yes. FanUp can configure branding, entry methods, messages, rules, rewards, terms, reporting, and integrations for different customers and campaign types.
FanUp uses AWS Lambda and serverless infrastructure, Hatchery's platform technology, and performant Java code so campaigns can handle bursty live-event usage without carrying unnecessary fixed infrastructure.
Yes. FanUp includes an admin experience that lets customers create, configure, launch, and manage their own campaigns and events without needing Hatchery to make every operational change.
Clarify what to build, what to simplify, what to protect, and what must work first.
