In this vlog, Ryan Shank, co‑founder of PhoneWagon, gives a raw, day‑in‑the‑life update on the startup’s current state. He talks about the ongoing fundraising round (still filling out the round, negotiating cap‑table, valuation, and lawyer fees), the importance of a clean cap table, and the role of his lawyer Steve Ryan in handling tax and legal paperwork. Ryan shares key business metrics – $9.5K‑$10K MRR, 115 paying customers, and a growth goal of adding $15K net new MRR each month by April 2018 (currently adding $2.5K). He reflects on the tension between working "in" the business (customer calls, product work) and "on" the business (fundraising, planning). He also discusses emotional customer cancellations, the cost of legal counsel, and the broader vision of expanding PhoneWagon from a call‑tracking analytics tool to a full phone system. Throughout, Ryan thanks his community, references Techstars, and ends on a motivational note about hard work and progress.
Chapters
Yeah, you're right, like, fuck us, like, you should cancel. But if he's like canceling like out of emotion because of like a miscommunication that we didn't even really drop the ball on. Oh, guys, things are just coming together. The thing is we're having to pay for a lot of stuff. My lawyer, he's the man. Steve Ryan, thank you so much for everything. Like, literally be lost without you, wouldn't know what to do. Probably would get hit with like weird IRS tax stuff. He's been saving us. We're getting a lot of documents together. He's I'm just having like a ton of calls. So basically, I mean, we're still filling out the rest of the round and we have it— we're talking to a bunch of different people, so we're trying to get them to all like commit or not commit. Like, I hate in this like lingering phase, like, you in or you out, bro? So kind of in the middle of two things. One, I'm like, I'm in deep talking to customers and things like that, working with Jim, scripting, boom boom boom. Then it's like zoomed out, like raising. And then like kind of like in between there, trying to just like plan, right? Because there's like the difference between working on your business and in your business. So I've been working on and in to increase the net new MRR added to $15,000 a month. Right now we're adding like $2,500 a month. We need to start adding $15K a month by April 2018. So we're obviously gonna kinda like climb, climb, climb, get there, and then once we're there then we're gonna be like steady and kinda just tweaking and stuff like that. Planning on figuring out like how do we get there? How do we like basically start adding $15K a month? And our entire business, by the way, we're at like $9,500 MRR, so we're about to be at $10K. We have like 115 active paying customers right now. Pumped about that. But again, this vlog today is just like, Phone calls and phone calls and phone calls and phone calls and lawyers and all this stuff and then me and Mike were talking 'cause we're trying to get the cap table right so that like everything's super clean. It is a super clean cap table. The only people common right now is like me and Techstars. So like people ask that, obviously there's nothing like weird going on there so appreciate you guys following along, all 50 of you. Nah, it's probably like 30 and then I watch it like 20 times myself every single vlog. Don't worry about it. So if you guys are new here, my name is Ryan Shank. This is our journey. We're building PhoneWagon from the ground up, ground up and then you guys have been with us every single day since the beginning. We're vlogging our way through the entire thing. Went through Techstars. New York City, that's done, that's over. We were bootstrapped, completely self-funded. We're about to be not self-funded anymore so that we can grow, so that our customers, we can just serve them better products and it's gonna be amazing. So, without further ado, I hope you guys are out there working hard, building your businesses, building companies, doing awesome stuff and being pioneers and being wagoners. Peace! Like these guys wanna lead and I was like, you guys can like co-lead if you want. I'll let you guys hash it out. And I was like, I don't really care. But anyway, they wanna put in $500. I have a call with them like Soon, actually. I think it's so wack when people congratulate people for raising. It's like, that doesn't mean anything. Do we pay Anas? Does he bill us? Not recently. I feel like he just like does shit and doesn't bill us. Which is great. And I always like am cognizant of the sample size, but it's like totally even in that case, like even when we're going outbound, even the inbound stuff, it's like these guys, a lot of our inbound stuff, people are just starting to use it. Kind of to your point, I would say like, I would say Trello. Yeah, we have some— I'm not saying you guys are like this at all, but you know, sometimes— So I talked to Darko and he'll create the model. Obviously we're going to kind of like back solve, but like, can we just use $750K as the valuation? Like, I don't know. I just don't know what share price to do. Hey, what's up? Good, how you doing? Good, sorry, I was on another call and I like just saw the car. Yeah, exactly, you want to turn on the tracking template and then I can chat you through it. Hey, I ordered food, um, from you guys and it was confirmed off of Seamless at 1:15 and it's still not here, but you'll do it now so it'll be here in like 30 minutes. Did you change it to Michael Horton editing the dots? Yeah. What else did you How did you edit? Don't worry about that. Just added a couple zeros in a few places. Good lord! Or we can just like get cash and we deposit cash. Why do we have to do this? 'Cause you have to buy the shares. You're like buying the shares. Can you just give them to me? No. So basically you're buying these at, call it, $700K valuation or whatever it is, $500K. Then in the future, they're worth more than $500K, then you pay the difference in the gain, just like you normally would. So if it sells for like $50 million, you'll pay the difference between What was up with voicemail detection? Like, what do you mean? Like, do you ever look at it? You know that little Wayne line? He's like, "I'm doing million-dollar deals from my iPhone." Now you can do it from your iPhone but on your computer. And you like text from your computer. So it's like what's on your phone. 4 sales in Wagon Land today and negotiating term sheet while you hit the signature today. If he actually looks into it, like, logically instead of just reacting. The thing is, if he was like, hey, I'm canceling because, like, your dynamic numbers don't work, or like the attribution's off, that's like super fair. Like, yeah, you're right, like, fuck us, like, you should cancel. But if he's like canceling, like, out of emotion because of like a miscommunication that we didn't even really drop the ball on. They're like $300 an hour. Like, this guy's like not even— he's probably like $200, $250 an hour. He's probably $300 an hour. Like, partner lawyers are like $500 an hour. 50 an hour. Like 500. I mean, this might be like a real job. It's gonna be a whole job. Nah, it could be success plus support. No, no, no, no, that's not right. Oh yeah, yeah, all right, you're right, you're right. Yeah, success. Yeah, no, no, just— no, no, you're right, you're right, it could be both. All right, cool. All right, bet. I think I'm going crazy. I need to get out of the city. That's all you do. I think it's like grass or something. One, first off, doesn't that look a lot better just having like one little short line taking out all the other crap? Yeah, it's great. Where's the other stuff? I thought it was an awesome conversation. He's like, look, whether we do the deal or not, you can always reach out to me, you know, at any time. You have my contact info and all this stuff. Exactly. Yeah, and I mean, I would argue that it's expanding. It was in one of the articles that said they're at a $20 mil run rate. Call Tracking is a pure analytics play. What they've started to do is go, alright, we're gonna be call tracking, but like, we're also gonna have a phone, so like, we can also be like a phone system as well. And that's the vlog for today. Woo! It was good. It was a good one. So, I'm pumped about everything that's going on, by the way. And I'm actually about to go to the gym and get pumped. You know, progress of the company, like where we're going, team, like all that stuff. Like, super, super happy. And yeah, that's the vlog for today. Peace! Bye!
