Marketplace • Fractional CTO
We rebuilt the chef marketplace after a cyberattack attempt, added routing + payments automation, and instrumented analytics to support nationwide expansion and $1M ARR in seven months with no marketing spend.
2,500+
Chef-client matches
-63%
Booking processing time
<0.2%
Payment errors
40 hrs/week
Operational savings
Month 1
Assessment + roadmap, payment stack redesign.
Month 2
Launched new booking workflow + chef onboarding.
Month 3
Automated payouts, CRM sync, and reporting.
A quick operator-level summary of what changed.
Problem
A high-touch chef marketplace was bottlenecked by manual coordination, spreadsheets, brittle payments, and then hit by a cyberattack attempt that forced a full shutdown.
Action
HyperNest acted as a fractional CTO for the marketplace, rebuilding the core system after the attack, redesigning booking flows, automating payouts, and wiring analytics into every critical surface.
Outcome
EatCookJoy scaled chef-client bookings, cut booking processing time by 63%, freed the founder’s team from operational fire drills, and grew to $1M ARR within seven months of relaunch without paid marketing.
The original platform relied on manual coordination and brittle spreadsheets. Scaling to thousands of chef hours required robust booking flows, availability management, and payment automation. In early 2025, a targeted cyberattack attempt forced a full shutdown, putting the entire business at risk unless the core systems could be rebuilt safely and quickly.
We rebuilt the core marketplace with real-time availability, integrated logistics, and automated payouts. The HyperNest team also handled infrastructure hardening and analytics. Our Staff Security Engineers Naveen and Rohan conducted comprehensive VAPT to ensure the rebuilt platform was rock solid against future attacks.
EatCookJoy now runs a self-serve marketplace with minimal manual intervention while delivering premium hospitality experiences at scale. After the rebuild, the company went from shutdown to more than $550K ARR in five months and crossed $1M ARR in seven months—with effectively zero marketing spend—while staying in beta.
Tools, platforms, and competencies we owned for this engagement.
Product
Backend
Ops
Security
“HyperNest gave us enterprise-grade infrastructure so we could focus on chefs and customers. After the cyberattack, Naveen and Rohan made our security rock solid—I sleep better at night knowing they reviewed everything.”
Zainab Ghadiyali
Founder & CEO, EatCookJoy
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