Ryan Shank, co-founder of PhoneWagon, documents day two at Techstars NYC. A major agency signed on because they liked his team's hunger and cheaper reporting. He's shifting his vlog style to feel more raw and less performed, inspired by watching Gary Vaynerchuk.
Chapters
So I was actually leaning heavier on entertainment, but what I've done recently is like, I don't even like that style, to be honest. That's not even really my style. I was kind of just messing around. Uh, after growing the company to 8 employees, got acquired by IAC, HomeAdvisor, Hubrik. This is Ryan Shank giving you a call from PhoneWagon. I know we—
I actually should have left. I know I should have. That was nice. I'm gonna take that to the heart.
Alright guys, so I just got off of a call with a customer. It was actually a really good call.
How much more are you? How much more is your premium product? We're less. I don't know if you're interested in like saving money and having like an easier product with the same level of data, but that's what we do. I'd like to do the demo process and all that. If you're telling me you're gonna save me money, give me a better level of this, that, you know, everything, whoop-de-doo, let's do it.
Got the guy interested. What he does is he's a pretty big agency, so he manages about 50 clients, auto dealerships and that sort of thing. One of the things that was really cool in the call is he said he likes the fact that we're young and hungry, which we are very, very hungry. You, by the way, but he said he's willing to give us a shot. He's like, look, you can give me all of the reporting and insight that I need, if you can integrate into the current platforms that I need, and it's less expensive and it's easier to use, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you a shot. Why would I not do that? So one of the things that we are going through right now is we're sitting here with Mike, we're going through the product and we're just like documenting all the different bugs and things that aren't bugs but are just like UX things that are weird. Alright guys, so today is the second day of the actual Techstars program. So first off, welcome to the vlog. I haven't done the intro yet. So my name is Ryan here. This is my journey building PhoneWagon, building my company. We're going through TechStars. It's a startup accelerator in New York City. We're going to give you an inside look. This is our vlog. We're going to be doing daily vlogs so that you can come on our journey. One thing that I do want to talk to you about is I'm actually changing the approach. So before, I was— it was louder. So I actually watched a talk from Gary Vaynerchuk, and he's saying that basically in vlogs there should be 3 different pillars. There should be entertainment, there should be inspirational, and educational. And you have to decide in your vlog how you want to weigh each of those, right? It's going to be more just like authentic raw, us going through the building process, because one, it's like not that professional, but it's also not really a good indication and representation of myself because like that's not how I act, especially all the time. Like I was really turning it up, feel like I'm kind of like an actor. It's gonna be more like just authentic and real, and it's not gonna be as like over-the-top as it was. But I think you're gonna get a lot of value out of it. You know, now you're gonna be able to see more true like rawness, and we're gonna be like building and like really doing sales. Like we're, I mean, we're in it right now. We've made 2 sales past 2 days. I've been hitting the phones today, John's been hitting the phones, Nick's been hitting the phones. Just got out of a meeting with Techstars. So what we've been doing this week is we break up into small groups, like 4 or 5 CEOs of startups that are going through Techstars, and we're doing elevator pitch practice. So Alex, managing director of Techstars, along with one of the associates, they're in the room. We're going through our elevator pitch and then we're giving each other feedback. So we're trying to really nail the pitch. So we could do this like 3 or 4 times first week. And then, you know, you kind of get your pitch down in terms of the actual script of the pitch, and then you use that going forward. So that's what we just did back there in that meeting.
It was really, really helpful.
Hey guys, it's Ryan Shank coming at you with our daily recap and just a little tidbit of advice, something that's on my mind that I went through today that I want to share with you guys. Why you should always be human and be, you know, relatable when you're talking with customers and really with everyone in your life. Your life, but I'm gonna apply this tip to your customers. So look, at the end of the day, especially if you're in sales, even if you're in marketing, or even if you're in customer service, it doesn't matter. Make fun of yourself because then they see that, look, I'm not trying to put up, you know, this fake front for you to see, and I'm not like this perfect human. And then they're like, look, I get it. This guy, he doesn't, you know, he's not coming in here just saying these things like he's like super polished. And that makes you relatable, right? It makes you human. And then what they're gonna do is they're gonna have a real conversation with you. I had a real conversation today with a guy And I was very transparent with him, he was really transparent with me. Alright guys, so today we're about to clock out, as they say. So today was actually a really, really good day. One of our sales guys, John, you guys know John, he set 5 demos today, which is massive. Uh, we're actually only looking to set like 2 a day per rep. So we're having a really, really strong week. We've had awesome conversations, so we have a lot of stuff that's like building up. We have a lot of customers in free trials that are about to convert to paying customers because we see that they're using the phone numbers, they're getting calls. Again, that's specific to our business. I don't want to be too specific, I'm just kind of giving you, you know, a little bit bit of insight into like what's happening in our, our world. I just went to the gym, so I feel freaking amazing right now. I should have gone earlier because I was kind of like, felt like sluggish, we're keeping it real. And then now I feel like I have so much energy, so I definitely should have done that earlier. We're gonna see you guys tomorrow morning. I really appreciate you, you following along, joining the journey. If you haven't, maybe hit the like button, maybe subscribe, or you just come back here manually every single day. But we're doing these videos every single day, 7 days a week, putting them up at 11 AM, and I appreciate you joining our journey. And we're gonna start sharing our metrics with you guys really, really, really soon. So we'll see you tomorrow.
