How Sentinel Photonics got from 0 to 30+ active partners in one month

Where Sentinel Photonics started: a reseller network run by hand

Before Introw, Sentinel’s commercial team faced a clear choice: hire another business development manager in Europe, or give its existing resellers the tools to sell more on their own.

1. No shared source of truth. Deal registration and partner information were handled manually over email or spreadsheets, with no real sync to Salesforce.
2. No visibility into the channel. The team had no clear read on what distributors were reselling or what revenue to expect from them.
3. Assets scattered in Dropbox. Partner enablement materials lived in Dropbox rather than in a hub partners could access and download from directly.
4. A sector that resists new tools. Getting defense resellers to adopt new software is notoriously hard. Many “might not necessarily be the most tech savvy and they don’t want to be able to learn new OS systems”, so a program partners wouldn’t use was a real risk, not a hypothetical one.

Why they chose Introw

Building the same thing inside Salesforce was on the table, but would have meant a lot of bespoke work before the first reseller saw anything. - Sentinel's Chief Commercial Officer, Jackson White

1. Faster payback than another hire. “We selected Introw because we believe it can have a faster, more enduring, and greater impact than hiring just one salesperson,” said Jackson White, Chief Commercial Officer. That was the economic case the team used to justify the purchase against adding headcount.
2. Operator ownership, no bespoke build. Sentinel wanted to go live quickly once it gave the go-ahead, with its own two-person team configuring the program rather than a developer.
3. Partner self-serve for a non-technical channel. Ease of use for resellers who don’t want to learn a new system was a hard requirement, not a nice-to-have.
4. An AI agent no one else could match. Sentinel wanted a chatbot that could answer partner questions from its own master and product documents. Matt Roberts said: “I don’t think anyone else can really deliver that AI chatbot capability as well.”

The results: a hard-to-move channel showed up within weeks

In a sector known for slow tool adoption, Sentinel’s resellers didn’t need chasing.

• 30+ active partners in the first month. September 2026 was the first full month after the August launch, and 40+ distinct partners had used the portal by October.
• First partner contact in the portal 7 days after kickoff, with Sentinel’s own team configuring the program.
• 45 course enrollments in September. Partners were enrolling in Sentinel’s training content from the first full month.
• 10+ form submissions in September, 60%+ accepted. Accepted submissions took a median of about 1 day to review.

Getting the defense sector to try new tools is notoriously tricky, but uptake has been fast and very positive. For us, the most important thing was changing partner behavior and keeping partners engaged. This portal does just that. - Matt Roberts, Marketing & Partnerships

An AI agent that knows Sentinel's own products

Sentinel built a partner-support AI agent grounded in its own master document and a separate document for each product line, so resellers can get accurate product answers without waiting on the team. Jackson White tested it directly, and Matt Roberts reported the result back on a later call:

The information the agent gives is correct, it's drawing all the right info, and we have no complaints with it. - Matt Roberts, Marketing & Partnerships

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