Ryan Shank rushes to a VC meeting in NYC with a firm managing $1.2 billion, currently investing from a $350 million fund focused on lead-generation and marketing. Next steps: send his deck and financials, then meet a portfolio company. PhoneWagon's funding round closes in two weeks with an AngelList syndicate launching soon.
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Famous or what? Yeah, huge. What up guys, thank you so much for joining in the vlog. Good morning, I hope everyone is out there working super, super hard, being a pioneer, being a Wagoneer. I got to tell you about the vlog today. I was working, I had a meeting at 1 o'clock, okay? What always happens recently is that I'm like, we're going, going, going, going, going, and then boom, it's like 12, 12:30. Boom, it was 12:47 PM and we had to go meet this venture capitalist, VC as they call it, on 27th and Park. We— our office is on 22nd and 5th. So I was like, oh shit, Kane, let's go! Yo, I'm about to make a video exposing it. Packed up really, really quickly and then we walked to their office. And then as we're walking there, I actually got an email that they were running 5 minutes late. So anyway, we were on time, okay? But I actually wasn't sure where we were meeting because they're not based in New York City, they're based in San Francisco. They were like, hey, you want me for coffee? But then they told me to come to the 8th floor of this like office, and I was like, there's not usually coffee shops on the 8th floor. Like, it's kind of weird. Just got an email from the assistant that they're running 5 minutes late. Probably stop and get like a— I was gonna say a coffee. I don't really need coffee, I just need water or something. And then we go up to the 8th floor. I thought it was like a coworking space, like maybe they just rented like an office in a coworking space for the day. So I was like going around and then I was like, is this a coworking space? And they're like, no. Everyone's looking at me weird because there was no receptionist either. And I was like, hey, we're here to have a meeting. What is this? I'm confused. She's in charge. Here you go. Thanks. Find out it was actually the office of this company called AdRoll, which I actually really like AdRoll. I've used them in the past. They're like a retargeting— you can do retargeting. Gorgeous, by the way. So do you want me to stay in here until they get here, or should I just set it up? You just set it up. I know, I was telling them.
Hey guys! Hey, what's going on?
And then end up meeting with, uh, the two like managing directors, managing partners of this VC firm. And I didn't know that much about them, but come to find out they have like $1.2 billion under management. They've been around for like 15 years. The current fund that they're investing out of is $350 million fund. And usually when it's like that big of a fund, they only make like large investments. So one, it was like an amazing conversation. Um, they have some portfolio companies that are in like lead gen and in the marketing space. So we totally like knew the same people and kind of run in the same circles and that sort of thing. Tilt your lens. I didn't say bye to her, but—
Tarek said bye.
They were just like, yeah. Went really well, I really like them. They have a $350 million fund. They seem super interested. He's gonna introduce me to one of his portfolio companies that does lead gen, but he said the next steps, so there's next steps, which is always a good thing. Better than not having next steps. Basically I have to send him my deck, financial plan, something else. He's gonna intro me, and then he's gonna get back to me if they wanna participate the round. I told them the round was coming together, we were gonna close in 2 weeks, and they said that they could move and they can make decisions that fast. So, really easy process. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Race back to the office, and then right now we're hiring for DevOps. So it's basically like an engineer, basically like a technical product manager, project manager that's gonna kind of be the liaison between like Mike and like our product team like onshore and our developers in India. You know, it's a really technical role, and honestly, like, we're kind of swinging above our weight right now. Like, we're trying to like, is this the right scope of work and that sort of thing. So if you guys are technical and can help us out at all, and if you know how to like, you know, talk and interview these guys, like, that's what we want help with right now. We want really technical people. It's a.NET stack. Backend is.NET and ASP.NET, that sort of thing. So if you guys know anyone or can help us out, let us know. Hit me up, Ryan@FunWagon.com. Getting a call right now. Ooh, hello, it's Ryan. Hey, what's up, what's up? I'm doing well, how are you? It's a great time, yeah, can you just hold on one second? Why are we having a performance review?
Like, that's so bad.
Maybe something also about the product roadmap, be like, you know, like basically like consistently. And you know what I was thinking? Like, we should actually advertise it as this, but like maybe once they come on board, give them like a senior title. Thing is like, if we do senior right now, then it's like we're gonna attract to expensive people. I mean, I almost think we should do title. We should kind of look at some data and be like, what title is wide enough where— I mean, we don't want to get to people that aren't qualified, but something that's not too specific. I don't know if DevOps is too specific. So that's the part where I kind of want to have someone like an engineer look at this over. I mean, I'm looking at this and I'm like, it sounds good, but it's like, I don't know, man. This is way out of my league. All right, thanks. I have a call right now. I'm on mute right now. Uh, that's actually a portfolio company for someone that's investing into PhoneWagon. They wanted me to chat with one of their other portfolio companies about sales and stuff. I actually told them, hey, I need 5 minutes, gotta do the intro for the vlog, we gotta ship it, it's past 3. By the way, our round's really coming together. We're still talking with new, you know, new, new people right now, uh, and our AngelList syndicate's about to go live. So if you guys want to invest into the round $1,000 minimum to go into the AngelList Syndicate through Paul Singh Syndicate. That's gonna be dope. Hope you guys like the vlog for today. If you're new here, my name is Ryan Shank. This is our journey. We're building PhoneWagon. We're taking you along with us every single day. We're vlogging the whole thing so that you guys can go back and boom, see everything that we did as we build the company from the ground up, go through Techstars in New York City, raised a couple million bucks, grow it, blow it up, and then get acquired for like $200-300 mil. Anyway, so right now we're still in the early phases of that, but that's gonna be the exact trajectory that we're gonna go on. So I'm out. Peace.
