How InquirED Drove $200K in New Pipeline Using Starbridge

InquirED builds inquiry-based curriculum for K-6 classrooms, helping schools teach social studies and literacy through exploration and critical thinking.

Challenge

In early 2025, InquirED knew it had to shift from lead-based marketing to an account-driven strategy. But the team lacked the infrastructure to support it: no comprehensive account scoring, inconsistent contact data, and limited visibility into district buying cycles that were changing fast.

“We were flying blind when it came to who was ready to buy,” said Allie Wheeler, Head of Sales at InquirED. “We tried traditional horizontal tools and even custom GPTs, but they didn’t actually tell us which districts were in the market.”

Before Starbridge, the team relied heavily on inbound leads and a single SDR manually researching district board documents to find potential signals. They would comb through hundreds of district sites in a day and often surface only a few actionable leads,  a process that was slow, inconsistent, and impossible to scale.

Complicating matters, adoption cycles in K–12 were becoming increasingly unpredictable. Historically, states like California and Texas ran multi-year curriculum adoptions, but those timelines are dissolving. “Adoption cycles are going out the window,” Allie explained. “Every district is now on its own calendar, and we had no visibility into contract expirations or when districts were planning their next review.”

Without a reliable way to score and monitor accounts, the team remained reactive: waiting for RFPs or leaning on pre-approved vendor lists instead of proactively identifying when districts were actually ready to buy.

Solution

Starbridge entered at a pivotal moment in InquirED’s go-to-market shift - right as the team transitioned from Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) to Marketing Qualified Accounts (MQAs). They needed a system that could surface buying signals, rank districts by readiness, and eliminate the guesswork from outbound targeting.

Starbridge became that backbone. The platform now provides crucial insights that inform account-driven motion, helping the team identify early indicators like board discussions, contract expirations, and district-led reviews that signal upcoming opportunities.

SDRs and AEs use Starbridge daily. SDRs start their mornings reviewing target account scores and digging into Bridges to understand what changed whether its leadership turnover, new RFP committee formation, or curriculum review activity. AEs rely on the Starbridge daily digests, which summarize shifts across top accounts and allow leadership and marketing to align outbound strategy in real time.

“Starbridge is like having a research team behind the scenes,” said Allie. “It scrubs board docs and district sites to flag the three things we actually need to act on, instead of us spending hours hunting through a hundred websites to find them.”

Results

Within the first quarter of adopting Starbridge, InquirED uncovered $200,000 in new pipeline - a major lift for a lean team operating within a 12–18 month sales cycle.

One early success proved the power of catching signals ahead of competitors. Starbridge detected a district board discussion about forming a teacher committee, a signal that would’ve gone unnoticed in their old workflow. The SDR reached out immediately and learned the district hadn’t yet written its evaluation rubric. “We were able to offer them a rubric to use in their process,” said Allie. “We didn’t just throw our hat in the ring. We designed the rubric.”

Today, both SDRs and AEs rely on Starbridge daily. The platform’s adoption rate is effectively 100%, with the entire revenue team reviewing Starbridge digests each morning to align outreach and messaging.

Allie credits Starbridge with giving the team the foresight to act sooner, not just faster. “Before, we were missing adoptions completely. We’d see award notices for districts we never even spoke to,” she said. “Now, we’re finding those districts months earlier, when we can still influence the process.”

Beyond measurable outcomes, Starbridge has also become a trusted part of the team. “It’s not just the tool,” Allie added. “It’s the people plus the technology supercharging us, not replacing us. That’s made all the difference.”

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