Case studies / CodeNax
A complete business development engine for a software agency selling into three markets.
Results from one engagement, in one market, at one point in time. They are not a guarantee of what another company will see.
The starting point
CodeNax builds custom software for startups, SMBs and agencies. The company had a UK entity, a new US LLC and a development team in Lahore, but no outbound infrastructure, no defined ICPs and no CRM process. Two BD executives were doing manual outreach without a system.
Abdul was brought in to lead business development infrastructure: define who to target, build the engine, and run the first campaigns.
What we built
- 1. ICP definition
Four ICPs documented in an ICP Definition v1.0: funded US startups (founders and CTOs, 1 to 50 staff), UK and UAE SMB service businesses, digital agencies in the UK, US and Australia looking for a white-label partner, and US engineering leaders hiring developers, offered a month-to-month staff augmentation model.
- 2. Email infrastructure
A primary domain plus three secondary domains under one Google Workspace, each with SPF, DKIM, a custom tracking CNAME and DMARC tightened to quarantine after warm-up. Three weeks of warm-up before launch, verified clean in MXToolbox, all integrated with Instantly through OAuth.
- 3. Lead sourcing
Apollo searches structured per ICP (roughly 2,000 prospects across the three primary segments), waterfall enrichment disabled to keep cost at one credit per contact, verified-email filter used so no re-verification was needed, and a clean path from Apollo to HubSpot to Instantly.
- 4. Campaigns
A four-step, text-only sequence over 12 days with open and link tracking off and stop-on-reply on, sending in Pacific business hours. AI-generated opening lines per lead from company name and role. A second campaign for the staff augmentation ICP launched across three mailboxes with a deliberately human, self-aware voice.
- 5. CRM
HubSpot configured with a deals pipeline as the single source of truth (New Lead through Won or Lost), custom properties for ICP, geography, lead source, company size and outreach status, and saved views per segment. Outreach mailboxes kept out of HubSpot during warm-up to protect deliverability.
- 6. Operating rhythm
Structured written updates and a Trello board for the CEO, decisions flagged and owned, one change at a time with verification before the next.
What changed
Launch benchmark set
Under 0.5% bounce across the first 1,300+ sends established the deliverability baseline for every later campaign.
A playbook, not just a campaign
Warm-up length, ramp settings, enrichment cost controls and DNS steps were written down so new domains could be added without rework.
Ready to scale
Volume ceilings per mailbox, a plan for additional domains and credit upgrades timed to mailbox maturity.
CRM the team actually uses
Segmented views and a single pipeline the BD executives work from daily.