Luxury Hospitality Marketplace Platform: Production-Ready in 12 Weeks
How SociiLabs helped HELM take its private-chef and hospitality marketplace from a Replit build to production-ready in 12 weeks, built to support 2,000+ providers.
Client · HELM · itshelm.com
About the project
01 Project overview
Engagement
12 weeks to production-ready, live since August 2026
Delivery team
Senior SociiLabs engineers with a delivery lead
Core technologies
Next.js, NestJS, PostgreSQL, GCP Cloud Run
HELM is a members-only marketplace for luxury hospitality, where members book private chefs, event staffing, catering and home services.
HELM's first version, built on Replit to test the market, was already taking real bookings when we joined at discovery, and investor conversations were underway. Twelve weeks later, the rebuilt platform was production-ready, and HELM has run on it in production since August 2026.
The new platform is built to support 2,000+ providers, with one payment flow from member checkout to provider payout and one live data layer behind every dashboard.
02 The challenge
Turn proven demand into a platform that scales to thousands of providers, without diluting the luxury experience or the trust behind every booking.
01
A marketplace serves three audiences at once.
Members book, providers deliver and HELM's team curates. Each group needs its own view of the same booking, at the same moment. A two-sided marketplace only works when all three sides see the same truth.
02
Luxury service starts with trust.
Members invite providers into their homes. Every account, session and recovery flow had to meet the standard of a premium brand. Providers had to be verified before they could ever appear in search.
03
Money moves in two directions.
A member pays once, and that payment then splits into provider earnings, HELM's fee and any gratuity. Checkout and payout had to agree to the cent, and every provider had to be paid on schedule.
04
The investor plan set the scale target.
HELM's investor plan called for a network of 2,000+ providers. The data layer had to be built for that volume from the start, so growth would never force a second rebuild.
Why SociiLabs
One team from first commit to production.
HELM needed a partner who could take a live marketplace to production without pausing the bookings already coming in. The booking flow was only one part of the work. Our scope also covered authentication, role-based access, payments and payouts, provider vetting and the data layer underneath all of it. We shipped behind protected branches with CI checks and a senior engineer reviewing every line before merge, kept the code in HELM's repo from the first commit, and designed the data migration so existing bookings carry across to the new platform.
What we built
03 Solution
The marketplace, and the production system underneath it. Members, providers and admins work from one platform and one live data layer, with payments that settle correctly on both sides.
Secure Accounts + Sessions
Hashed passwords, session management, account recovery and role-based access for members, providers and admins. Each role sees only what it should, from the same records.
Booking Engine
Members request a provider, date and service. Providers confirm, decline or propose a new time. Every state change is recorded, so nobody chases a booking by email.
Payments + Payouts
Checkout, provider payouts, platform fees and gratuities run through one payment flow. Each payout is calculated from the booking record, so what the member paid and what the provider receives always reconcile.
One Role-Based Dashboard
Three dashboards that disagreed became one interface. Members, providers and admins each get their own view of the same live numbers.
Provider Vetting
Applications move through mastery, reference and discretion checks before a profile goes live. The rebuilt flow made provider onboarding 60% faster.
Scalable Data Layer
A re-architected PostgreSQL schema built for 2,000+ providers, with indexes and query plans designed around that target from day one.
Architecture
System diagram
INSIDE A LIVE TWO-SIDED MARKETPLACE
Every role sees its own view. Every view shows the same truth.
Members, providers and admins sign in through one access layer that grants each role only the data it needs. Payments are confirmed by the processor before a booking is marked paid, and idempotent payout jobs prevent a provider from being paid twice. Providers stay hidden from search until vetting is complete. Admin actions on bookings, refunds and payouts are written to an audit trail. All testing runs against a staging environment with seeded data, never real member records.
Delivery timeline
Twelve weeks to production-ready. Built for 2,000+ providers.
Twelve weeks after discovery began, the rebuilt platform was production-ready, with secure auth, end-to-end payments and one role-based dashboard in place. The platform has been live since August 2026.
WEEK 1
Discovery & Architecture
Map the roles, booking states and money flows.
PHASE I
Secure Accounts
Hashed passwords, sessions, recovery and role-based access.
PHASE II
Payments + One Dashboard
Checkout to payout, and three dashboards merged into one.
WEEK 12
Production-Ready
Rebuilt platform ready for production on GCP Cloud Run.
AUG 2026
Built for 2,000+ Providers
Live in production, on a data layer sized for HELM's investor plan.
HOW IT STAYED TRUSTWORTHY
Every booking has a paper trail.
PAYMENT CORRECTNESS
Checkout and payout agree.
Payments are recorded only after processor confirmation. Payouts are calculated from the booking record, with fees and gratuities itemised. Idempotency keys stop any retry from creating a second charge or a second payout.
MEMBER + PROVIDER TRUST
Access is earned and scoped.
Providers pass vetting before they are bookable. Sessions expire and recover securely. Each role reads only the records it is entitled to, and admin actions are logged.
OPERATIONAL VISIBILITY
One source of truth.
The three original dashboards drew from separate queries. Today every view reads the same live data layer, so a booking count is the same number wherever it appears.
PULL REQUESTS SENIOR-REVIEWED BEFORE MERGE
Every PR
ADMIN ACTIONS ON BOOKINGS, REFUNDS AND PAYOUTS
Logged
WHERE EVERY TEST RUNS
Staging
04 Impact & results
Impact & Results
Production-ready in 12 weeks. Providers onboard faster. Every dashboard agrees.
- Production-ready in 12 weeks, from discovery to a rebuilt platform with secure auth, end-to-end payments and one role-based dashboard.
- Built to support 2,000+ providers, the network size in HELM's investor plan, on a re-architected PostgreSQL data layer. 2,000+ is the capacity the platform was built for. HELM has been live in production since August 2026.
- 60% faster provider onboarding, with applications moving through mastery, reference and discretion checks in one tracked flow.
- 1 payment flow from member checkout to provider payout, with platform fees and gratuities itemised and idempotency keys so a retry can't charge a member twice.
- 3 dashboards → 1 role-based view. Members, providers and admins read the same records, so a booking count is the same number everywhere it appears.
- 0 plain-text passwords remain. Auth was rebuilt with hashed credentials, expiring sessions and secure recovery for all 3 roles.
Weeks from discovery to a production-ready platform
12 wks
Faster provider onboarding
60%
Dashboards merged into one role-based view
3 → 1
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