In this vlog recorded on August 2, 2017, Ryan Shank walks viewers through a pivotal day for PhoneWagon, a bootstrapped startup in Techstars NYC. The team focuses on three main operational fronts: (1) fixing and validating marketing tracking so campaign events fire correctly, enabling data‑driven spend; (2) pushing toward a $25K monthly recurring revenue (MRR) target, discussing current funnel metrics (average $160 per sale, SDR vs AE roles) and the need to improve site conversion speed, which currently takes ~30 seconds to register a user; (3) handling hiring and logistics, including bringing a new hire to New York, arranging travel, and sending offer letters. Throughout the conversation, concerns about competitive intelligence (many contacts in Atlanta, the location of a major competitor) surface, as does a product rule to alert customers when a call exceeds 40 seconds. The team also reviews backlog priorities, confirming a high‑priority feature (email notification mock‑up) slated for release by Friday. The tone is informal, enthusiastic, and occasionally frustrated about technical bottlenecks, reflecting the fast‑paced, founder‑centric environment of a growing startup.
Chapters
If the call is greater than 40 seconds, then I want to send an alert notification to the customer.
Sup guys, August 2nd here. We have a big day ahead of us. I'm really, really excited. One of the things we're gonna focus on this week, and particularly today, is getting a lot of the marketing stuff set up. A lot of the tracking that we have for a lot of our marketing campaigns isn't firing right, so we want to make sure we're gonna dive in, make sure all the events are firing based on the right campaigns that we're doing, so we know exactly what's working, what's not working, so we can spend money and in the right areas. We've had two of the biggest days so far this week, so today could be a massive day, setting up for a massive week. I'm really, really excited. We got to keep hitting it hard every single day. If you guys are new here, my name is Ryan Shank. This is the journey building Phone Wagon from the ground up, no outside funding, fully bootstrap. We're going through Techstars in New York City. I hope you guys are out there working hard, being pioneers, being Wagoneers. Welcome to the vlog!
Number-wise, I mean, we want to hit $25K in MRR.
We're still seeing where it shakes out, but the current average MRR per sale, like in July, was $160. That's kind of the funnel metrics of the AEs. And then again, this position, this is an SDR position.
'Cause we have to get our site optimized for conversions a lot better 'cause it's like takes forever to like sign up on the site. It takes like 30 seconds to fucking register, so it's like annoying and trying to fix that. And then I'm trying to like reach out to press to get— When you say press, what do you mean? I'm reaching out to like writers and like bloggers and stuff to try to get press around the vlog and around the company so that we can just get our name out there. So I also have a lot— I'm also, I just hired someone, so I'm gonna bring them to New York back on Monday, so I'm looking up like airfare and like hotels and Airbnbs. He's gonna be here for at least a week, maybe 2 weeks. Um, I also have to send him an offer letter. I just interviewed another kid, so I gotta get him some dates to come in, and I have another guy coming in tomorrow as well. But I'm focusing today a lot on marketing stuff. And also, this person's in Atlanta, and I feel like every time I talk to someone that's in Atlanta, it's our competitors spying on us.
So like, I'm always like skeptical.
It's like, why are you in Atlanta? Not that Atlanta's bad, but it's like, why do we have so many people from Atlanta? That's where our biggest competitor is. So I go into her account, she called from this number, incoming work is from this number. I Google this number and this is a site that it's on, Natalie Newman 99509. Let's just ship something and then we can like add stuff to it just to like—
That's the test. I absolutely wanted that. That's like what I was hoping to get out of it. So this should be out by Friday. Like by the end of the day Friday. End of their day Friday.
Tomorrow morning?
Yeah, 'cause this is priority number one. They understand that.
Is there any way you could do like a mock-up of that, of Mohammed's email notifications and like send it to me so then I can send it to him and be like, hey, this is what it's gonna look like.
It's all here. Like so if you look at the backlog and it's the top of the backlog right now.
If the call is greater than 40 seconds, then I want to send an alert notification to the customer.
What up guys, it's Ryan Shank. It is 8:30. Today was crazy. It was fun though. So anyway, today was tight. We're trying to get all the marketing stuff figured out, but thank you guys for joining us and coming along for the ride. If you guys are new here, my name is Ryan Shank. This is our journey building PhoneWagon from the ground up. We're out here every single day, 7 days a week. No outside funding, completely bootstrapped. We're going through Techstars in New York City. I hope you guys are out there working hard, being pioneers, being Wagoneers. See you tomorrow, peace.
