In this informal vlog, Ryan Shank gives viewers a behind‑the‑scenes look at PhoneWagon’s hectic week. He opens with a quick greeting, then walks through several concurrent activities: conducting sales interviews, polishing a pitch deck for upcoming investor meetings, and celebrating a surge of six new customers that generated the highest net‑new MRR in six weeks. The core of the vlog is a live sales call with Jim Gandolfo, where Ryan narrates the objection‑handling process (a prospect lacking a credit card) and showcases how the team tries to close the deal while brainstorming product differentiation ideas such as a T‑Mobile‑style unlimited usage plan, custom white‑label branding, and dynamic cover options. Ryan also mentions plans to revamp the company logo and shares a quick demo of adding users and granting client logins. Throughout, the tone is candid, energetic, and occasionally self‑deprecating, reflecting the startup’s fast‑paced culture and the team’s willingness to share both successes and awkward moments with their audience.
Chapters
He's using a video chat and the customer just saw me come up with the camera. What up guys? So first of all, good morning. Hope you guys are all out there working hard, being pioneers. Welcome to the vlog. Today we did a lot. So I had sales interviews coming in today. We're still crafting this pitch deck. We're trying to meet, we're meeting with a ton of investors and we're just going through it. I actually like super liked the edit for today's vlog. Came, smashed it. It was a hit. And I think you guys are gonna really like it. You're gonna get a lot of stuff out of it. We're trying to figure out like how to balance like feedback for like this deck that we're doing with, you know, like closing customers like Jim. Gym was about to close. You guys can see what happens. It's like a pretty good thing. So without further ado, if you guys are new here, my name is Ryan Shank. This is our journey building PhoneWagon, which by the way, I think we're going to change the, um, I think we're going to change the logo. I'm kind of over it. This is like again one of the biggest weeks that we've had in a while. So we've had like 6 new customers come on board this week, the highest growth and net new MRR that we've had in over like 6 weeks. Peace. Welcome to the vlog. So this is how you can add users into your account and give your clients their own logins. Woo! Look at that auto-conversion. That's what I'm talking about. So what are the next steps with them in terms of like implementation? Yeah, I want to go through that in a second. I just don't— the thing is like I don't want tech to override the business. I don't touch CallTrack anymore. I'm feeling another sale today. He spazzes out on us again. Oh my God. No one else is putting custom gradient colors in white labels. There's not. How's it going? It's Jim Gandolfo. Hey, Alkis, it's Jim Gandolfo. Hey, Mark, how's it going? It's Jim Gandolfo over here. At PhoneWagon. If you don't mind accepting it, just so I know to get you through appropriately. Guys, Jim, he's closing right now. Here we go, Jim. Oh, oh no, I forgot he's using the screen share. He's He's in a video chat and the customer just saw me come up with the camera. Don't get caught on email. Oh, he is going for the close, he's going for the close. When is that, when does that start?
I'm sorry.
He's getting hit with a hard objection right now. The guy's saying he doesn't have a credit card. I don't believe him. Let's see if Jim can overcome it. Let's see if he can get past these obstacles. 2 weeks, we don't have time for 2 weeks. We don't have time, just $25. We can change the credit card on file later. We can change it later, just any card just to activate it. 30-day money-back guarantee. He's giving him an out. Oh. What the fuck, dude? Jesus Christ. Yo, we thought we were gonna get the clothes. What happened? You know, like the legacy guys that it's like there's— like all these like old school guys where I feel like they're so shitty. It's like I wanna like differentiate against them and then I also wanna address the like real competitors. It just felt like from the feedback you got that it wasn't resonating. Like people— I think people just automatically assume that like these are bullshit.
I know, but this is actually based on real data.
I know, but I don't think— like even if it is real data, I think people are like— Audition. We've seen this before, Sly, so no, we're keeping those.
He thought the quadrant was cliché.
'Cause I actually thought about this back in the day. I view us as like, I want to kind of be like the T-Mobile. You know how T-Mobile is kind of shaking things up in this old-school industry? And one of the things that they've done, which I want to do, but I think we can't do it yet, is offer an unlimited usage plan. No one's doing that, like at all.
Have like a ton of other types of dynamic covers that you can create that we don't offer yet. To me, it kind of was like trying to cover the most requested use cases. And if people wanted to track visitors, I'll send over an updated design for that option. Rajesh, are you seeing his screen? I think we'll just go through the recommendations that, you know, we've gotten already.
That's the climax. Yo, that's our strategy. We don't have a completed deck. Yo, that could be the strategy. Like, we don't have a completed deck, so then everyone feels like engaged and they're like helping us. I'm about to close this dude. By talking shit, he was like giving us suggestions on how to differentiate from competitors, but yo, he's talking shit.
You got a picture of Darko? And what's Darko's last name?
Sokanski. [FOREIGN] And that is the vlog for today. Hope you guys had a great day. It is nighttime here. It's all— there's still sunlight. Uh, it's future Ryan right now. I hope you guys enjoyed that vlog. You saw Jim. Jim He's been working remote, so he's not used to cameras in his face, so he looked up and we're all like vlogging and stuff, and he was like, guys, I don't know if I can do this, what's going on? Plus I put the camera in, I was like filming him as he was on a video, whoa, video demo with the customer, so it's a little much, little much, but sometimes we get excited, we wanna share the content with you guys, the Wagoneers out there. But I'm gonna let you guys go. I hope you had an amazing day. We'll see you tomorrow. We do this every single day. Peace!
