Technical due diligence
A brand refresh isn't evidence of a rebuild underneath it
A public-records-request and workflow platform for government agencies, well over a decade old and predating modern API-first, cloud-native SaaS norms — a brand refresh with no evident ground-up rebuild behind it, and public reviews citing a dated admin interface. Technical due diligence: $10,000–$25,000, one to three weeks.
What we find
The platform is well over a decade old and predates the API-first, cloud-native norms that define how SaaS gets built today. It's had a brand refresh — new name, new marketing, presumably a new coat of paint on the interface — but there's no public evidence of a ground-up rebuild underneath that refresh, and public reviews cite a dated admin interface, which is usually the part of a product that gets touched last and reveals the most about what's actually running underneath.
Why it matters for a PE holder
A brand refresh is cheap and a rebuild is not, and from the outside they can look identical for a while. For a buyer, the risk is paying for what a rebuild implies — modern architecture, current security posture, a codebase a new team can actually extend — while getting what a refresh actually delivers, which is a new surface on the same core. Government-facing software carries its own version of this risk sharply: procurement cycles are long, switching costs are high, and a platform can coast on incumbency long after its architecture has fallen behind what a newer entrant would ship.
What the engagement checks
The diligence engagement assesses whether the core codebase and admin experience have actually kept pace with current SaaS architecture — not just the customer-facing surface — and scopes remediation cost ahead of close, so a refresh doesn't get mistaken for a rebuild in the deal model.
$10,000–$25,000, one to three weeks. We read what a target company's codebase, dependencies and infrastructure actually run, find the specific legacy-stack or security exposure it carries, and hand back a report scoped enough to become the remediation plan — if the deal proceeds and one is warranted.
This pattern is drawn from public research on a real, small software company, not a completed Shashtram engagement. Named engagements with measured figures replace it as clients clear being named.
One pattern, not the whole offer
This is one pattern. The full technical due diligence offer covers pricing, what the report contains, and answers to the questions PE operating partners actually ask.
Diligence is Map, scoped to one question and priced on its own — not a separate product, and never an assumed rewrite.
Questions
Straight answers.
What if we don't proceed to a rebuild after the report?
Then the report is what you paid for, and the engagement ends there. Nothing about the diligence commits you to a modernization project — most of the value in a $10,000–$25,000 read is knowing what you're actually buying, whether or not you act on it afterward.
Start here
Bring us one workflow.
Tell us the process that crosses the most systems. You get a scope, a measure and a delivery plan back — and a straight answer if we think it is not worth building.
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