Ryan Shank and his crew film at YouTube Space in Chelsea Market while building Phone Wagon, a bootstrap startup in Techstars. They make pumpkin matcha, discuss their low-budget approach compared to bigger vloggers, and share how they're building their community of Wagonaires.
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Like when you let us sit in with the CEO of Techstars, that was fucking cool.
Good morning, Wagoners. What's going on? It's Saturday. Today we are in Chelsea Market at the YouTube studio. We're collabing with Rui Delgado. He's recording, he has a new video series that's set to drop. It's gonna be dope. Rui, my man.
Where's the camera?
Right there. So guys, Rui, by the way, you guys should know this, but Rui introduced me to Kane, who now you guys know Kane, he's in the vlogs and everything, 'cause Rui's been recording videos. He actually is the one who introduced me to YouTube and to the vlog scene.
I was in one of your videos already.
You were?
Remember? Which one?
The, um—
Oh yeah, yeah, the first one.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. For those OG subscribers.
Thank you guys, thank you Rui for having us, 'cause like you can't get into this space, by the way, unless you have a certain amount of subscribers, which Rui has that threshold to get us into this space, which is really, really cool. So this is our journey building Phone Wagon from the ground up, bootstrap. We're going through Techstars in New York City. You guys are out there working hard, being pioneers, being Wagonaires. Welcome to the vlog.
Is this Ryan Shank?
What you want? Stop declining it, Jade.
Come on, Jade.
Yo, Jade, you're the one who called me. I'm just calling you back. Yo, you can't even hit my snapback. All right, so we're making matcha. Making matcha with a pumpkin matcha.
Yeah.
And then I would have beat them up for you.
I beat them up for you.
That's really nice about it.
I wasn't like, you know.
So I sift it.
Oh, we didn't do the sifting last time. This was not in the instructions. This is new.
This is an added step, but it's sort of optional.
Is this an upsell?
It's like a little whisk, so it like breaks up the matcha powder. Give it a try.
Try it, try the whisk.
Literally, it's all you need to do.
It's just kind of like relaxing too.
Yeah. It's like warm.
Yeah, it's like warm in your hand. It's a meditative experience. Yeah. This is like nice.
Yeah, there you go.
Okay.
Is it a little frothy maybe?
Um, like a little.
Okay, that's good. That's perfect.
Okay, so then we add a little more hot water.
Okay, that should be better.
Is that almond milk?
Yeah. Oh shit.
What? Like almond milk? No, I like almond milk.
That's good. That is good. Is that better?
Yeah.
Okay, all right.
And usually they're like, okay, yeah, you know, I'll give you 10 minutes, right?
Because it's like they could potentially save money or they could potentially have a better product where, you know, their clients are a lot happier. So, alright guys, we just dropped what I think is the funniest video that we've dropped so far. Now we're going to the YouTube Space in Chelsea Market to film a video with our friend Rui, and Kane has to direct the video, so that's what we're about to do. How funny is that? And then, so like what we did, hey, so I'm not actually getting in the Yeah, that's, that's like the exact— like, I'm trying to make it so it's like, it's not necessarily about our business, but it's like, hey, we're doing this. It's like, it's like relatable, you know? Like, GaryVee does it, but he's like CEO of like a $200 million company. He's like, you know, worth like a couple hundred million bucks probably net worth. So it's like not super relatable. But like this, my whole point is like, hey, I want, you know, I want to show you what we're doing. And I want to get a little bit more tactic stuff in there, you know, so people can like take it and like Yeah.
Honestly, dude, like, the one, like, I don't know if you followed, like, Gary's original vlog, like the first 10, 20 episodes. He was letting you sit in on the meetings he was having with the CEO of iHeartRadio.
Yeah, that's dope.
That was fun. Like when you let us sit in with the CEO of Techstars, that was fucking cool. I wanted to hear what that guy had to say.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, David Cohen.
Okay.
You're having such a hard time. Alright, Wagoneers, Canineers, here we are. We're going out to the YouTube Space. We're meeting up with my mans, Rui. We're go— I don't know what floor to push. I just wanna— I hit it, but— Oh, you need a card. No. Yeah, you need a card. Still rolling, right? Yeah, you need a card.
Rui.
Yo. We're on 6R.
6R.
It says 6R.
6R.
Oh, YouTube, maybe like YouTube Red is 5? But that's where like, that's kind of like a deeper picture.
Yeah, no, no, no, I'm never stopping YouTube. Like, I'm going to livestream my death, probably.
How does it feel to be in Rome right now?
In Rome?
Yeah, here. Because I'm in Rome.
Am I swimming now?
Now you are.
You weren't. All right, see you guys. What? All right, we got out.
Um, I'm just going to go to the bathroom. I'm not going to the bathroom.
I'm pretending like I'm going to the bathroom, and I'm just going to search around the space. Yo, this space is dope! This is what you do to get that cool money. This is crazy, bro. All right, I think I hit the end that way, so going to go back out and Oh, look at this.
Now, Phone Wagon, they're the next people that's trying to help me now to become unhomless. You understand? Phone Wagon, check them out because they on their way up.
