No Outbound. No Playbook. No ICP. 12 Months Later, $11M in Pipeline.
When you sell one of the most complex TMS platforms in the market, who you sell to and how you find them determines everything.
The Context: Why Selling Shipwell Is Not Like Selling SaaS
Shipwell is a full-stack, AI-integrated Transportation Management System built for mid-market and enterprise shippers operating complex, multimodal supply chains. Named a Visionary in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for TMS for five consecutive years, including 2025, Shipwell sits at the technical and operational center of how companies manage billions in freight spend across truck, rail, parcel, ocean, and intermodal.
No Outbound Motion
Shipwell had zero proactive outreach. No ICP definition backed by actual customer data. No outreach infrastructure. No playbook. No system for finding right-fit accounts in the right industries.
Broken Inbound Operations
Leads were going directly to Account Executives for qualification, meaning AEs were doing SDR work instead of closing. Stale data, no SOPs, no tracking to understand where leads were converting or falling out.
Complex Sales Cycle
A Shipwell deal requires buy-in from supply chain leadership, IT, finance, and operations. Implementation runs 3 to 6 months minimum. The full sales cycle commonly spans 6 to 12 months. Reaching the wrong buyer costs weeks, not hours.
Revenue Leaking in Two Places
Marketing spend was generating activity but the revenue org was not set up to convert it. Two revenue channels, both underperforming, one of them nonexistent.
What Phi Built
Phi came in and built both motions simultaneously: a cold outbound engine from scratch, and a functioning inbound operation that could actually convert the traffic already coming in.
Outbound: Data-Driven ICP and TAM Definition
Before anyone sent a single email, Phi pulled Shipwell's customer data and worked backwards. Which industries were generating revenue? Which company profiles were converting, retaining, and expanding? The answers shaped a real ICP with specific verticals, firmographic criteria, and buying signals attached. From that ICP, Phi defined the TAM, scoped the SAM, and identified the realistic SOM to prioritize for outreach.
Embedded SDR Team and Omnichannel Outreach
Phi embedded a three-person SDR team (two SDRs and a Team Lead) operating as a genuine extension of Shipwell's commercial org. They ran an omnichannel outreach system across LinkedIn, cold email, and phone: sequenced, tracked, and optimized.
Platform and Playbook Build
Phi helped Shipwell shift away from Apollo and onto Gong for call intelligence and Salesforce as the CRM backbone. Then built the SDR playbook on top of that infrastructure: objection handling, talk tracks, sequencing logic, qualification criteria, and handoff protocols.
Inbound Operations Rebuild
The same Team Lead running outbound took ownership of the inbound operation and rebuilt it from the ground up. Clean up stale data, fix lead routing logic, implement proper tracking and data management, and write SOPs. Then brought in Qualified as a business intelligence tool, layering an inbound-led outbound motion on top of existing paid traffic.
Key Highlights
Two revenue channels rebuilt simultaneously, with infrastructure designed to compound over time.
Outbound: Zero to $6M Pipeline in 12 Months
The outbound motion generated $6 million in qualified ARR pipeline from a standing start. Of that, $4.6 million in ARR is currently in implementation, meaning it moved all the way through the sales cycle and converted. It is not pipeline anymore. It is revenue being onboarded.
Inbound: 648 Leads, 89 Opportunities, $5M Pipeline
648 inbound leads were processed through the new system. 89 qualified opportunities were created. The inbound motion generated $5 million in ARR pipeline, and $2.4 million in ARR was closed, with a number of deals still active in the sales cycle.
Real-Time Buyer Activation
With Qualified layered on top of paid traffic, website visitors with high-fit profiles could be identified and activated in real time, not left to fill out a form and wait. ICP profiling frameworks for inbound leads and a redesigned discovery process ensured AEs started conversations at the right level.
The Results
In 12 months, Phi and Shipwell built what was not there before: a revenue engine with two functioning channels, clean data, proper infrastructure, and a team that knew who they were selling to and why.
ARR pipeline from a cold outbound motion built from scratch
ARR from outbound now in active implementation
ARR pipeline from a rebuilt and properly instrumented inbound funnel
ARR closed from inbound, with deals still progressing
Qualified opportunities created from inbound alone
Inbound leads moved through a qualification system that did not exist a year ago
Phi didn't feel like an agency we hired. They felt like a revenue team we finally had.
Shipwell Leadership
Executive Team, Shipwell
Ready to Achieve Similar Results?
Let's discuss how we can help you build a scalable go-to-market engine for your business.
Related Case Studies
TruckX Sales Acceleration
How we helped TruckX grow from $2M to $16M ARR in 18 months
DataTruck Outbound GTM
How Phi helped DataTruck slash CAC by 97% and hit $1M ARR in 9 months
Mudflap Product-Market Fit
Using outbound GTM to discover the true SOM and accelerate growth