Launchpad: a native lead marketplace and CRM, built from zero

Client: The Playbook Agency (high-volume life-insurance lead agency) Engagement: Full-stack product design and build Stack: Next.js · React · TypeScript · Self Hosted Postgres · Stripe · Self Hosted Deployment

Synopsis

We built Launchpad, a custom lead marketplace and agent CRM that replaced a rented GoHighLevel setup with a platform the client actually owns. Agents buy verified life-insurance leads by type, tier, and state; a fair-distribution engine delivers them in real time; and every lead is phone-validated before it can be sold. Today it manages 100,000+ leads with automated validation, race-safe fulfillment, and a live analytics dashboard, all custom-built.

The Challenge

The client ran a fast-growing insurance-lead operation on a patchwork of third-party tools: a rented CRM, spreadsheets, and manual hand-offs. It worked until it didn't.

No source of truth for inventory. Nobody could answer "how many veteran leads can we actually sell right now?" Sold and do-not-call numbers still looked available, so orders were promised against stock that didn't exist.
Fulfillment was manual and unfair. Leads were assigned by hand, which meant delays, duplicates, and no guarantee every buyer got their share.
Quality was unverified. Bad phone numbers and out-of-range leads flowed straight to agents, driving refund requests and wasted dials.
They didn't own the platform. Every workflow lived inside software they rented and couldn't change.

What We Built

Launchpad is a ground-up platform with two connected halves: a lead marketplace and a native CRM for the agents who buy from it.

A real-time lead marketplace. Agents shop by lead type (Veterans, Widows, Final Expense, General Life, IUL), delivery tier (real-time, aged, and a $1 promotional tier), and target state, off an interactive US map showing true, per-state availability.
A fair-distribution fulfillment engine. A background engine claims and delivers leads atomically and round-robin, so every paid order fills evenly with no double-delivery and no manual touch, even when hundreds of orders compete for the same fresh inventory.
Automated phone validation. Every lead is verified against a phone-validation service on the way in; only leads that pass (and aren't on the suppression list) can be sold. Roughly 95% of inbound leads validate clean, and the rest are suppressed automatically instead of reaching an agent.
A suppression system that tells the truth. A 38,000-entry suppression list of previously-sold and do-not-call numbers is enforced everywhere at once: the store, checkout, the admin dashboard, and the delivery engine all count the same "truly sellable" number, ending the phantom-inventory problem for good.
A native agent CRM. Book-of-business dashboard, lead pipeline, disposition tracking, appointment scheduling, multi-policy close capture (one lead, a whole household), and per-agent performance analytics covering ROI, cost per acquisition, and average premium per sale, replacing the rented CRM entirely.
An admin command center. Live inventory by type and tier, a lead-quality breakdown, phone-validation health, a daily operations report, order-fulfillment tracking, and an AI operations assistant that answers plain-English questions about the business from live data.

The Results

Well over 100,000 leads under active management in the first month, on a platform the client owns outright.
~95% validation pass rate per lead, with automated suppression of the rest: agents stop dialing dead numbers.
Sub-minute, hands-off fulfillment. Paid orders fill automatically and fairly; the manual assignment bottleneck is gone.
One honest inventory number across every screen. No more selling leads that can't be delivered.
A complete migration off GoHighLevel, giving the client full control of their workflows, data, and roadmap.

Why It Matters

Launchpad turned a rented, manual operation into an owned, automated one. The client now has a system that scales with their lead volume instead of crunching underneath it, and a foundation they can keep building on, from native messaging and calling to deeper analytics, without asking a vendor for permission.

Built by Grid Theory: product strategy, design, and full-stack engineering.

Launch Pad