In this day‑4, season‑2 vlog, Ryan Shank takes viewers along on a trip to Lafayette, Indiana, where he meets with investor Paul Singh. The duo visits the Matchbox coworking space, tours Singh’s mobile Airstream office, and conducts office‑hours sessions with local startups. Throughout the day they discuss the growing “Rise of the Rest” movement—investing in non‑coastal startup hubs—and share practical advice on building businesses, emphasizing relentless customer outreach (the “pick‑up‑the‑phone” mindset), focusing on sales‑funnel metrics, and delivering real value over flashy technology. Ryan also references his own venture, Phone Wagon, and wraps up the vlog with a brief outro encouraging viewers to keep hustling.
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Good morning guys, what's going on? This is Ryan Shank. We are back with another vlog. You can see I'm in a hotel room right now. I want to first welcome you to the day. I know this is going to be day 4, season 2 of the vlogs. Today what we're going to do, I'm in Lafayette, Indiana with Paul Singh, one of our investors. We're doing a ton of office hours with startups here. We're just meeting with them, just listening to their ideas. He invests in some of them. Me and him have co-invested into a few startups together. He's an investor in the current company. We're just friends, you know, so we're also doing a fireside chat tonight at a coworking space called Matchbox. So hopefully You guys are gonna, you know, come along for the day. And by the way, like, I super appreciate everyone following along. Again, I'm not gonna do super vlog style like I actually am doing today. In our typical vlogs, once I get back to the office, we're gonna do more tactical stuff. But for now, I still wanted to give you guys a behind-the-scenes peek at kind of what's going on. So welcome to the vlog today, day 4. Let's go have a day. Whoa, all right, so that was the time travel. Now we're at the co-working space. It's called Matchbox. So we're gonna go in here right now. So I don't know if you guys can see, but Paul, he drives this, this like trailer around the country. He goes to coworking spaces in between the coasts. There's a huge thing right now, Rise of the Rest, where people are going to spaces not on the coast to be able to find startup talent in cities like Lafayette, Indiana, and Boise, Idaho, and things like that. There's a lot of talent. So this is, we're going in now, so. Alright guys, so we just did— I'm here with Paul Singh. Paul, thanks for inviting me to—
Thanks for coming to hang out, man.
Booming in— hold on guys, look at that. Oh, that's the Airstream. Can we go? Can we go?
No dude, you can't do the inside, it's dirty.
So we just did a fireside chat with a bunch of entrepreneurs in India. Some of those— one, the questions were good, but also I think some of the pitches were actually good.
Yeah. And then we met today, we had office hours.
With a bunch of startups here as well. This is his Airstream, by the way, here. Hold on, we're gonna go down the side first.
I got your laptop.
Oh, there's my laptop. Alright, here we go.
Look at that. Honestly, ignore that.
It's like pimp my ride.
I swear it's usually clean.
Alright, so just quick takeaways for the Wagoneers. Wagoneers, alright. Wagoneers. What's, how do you think it went?
I think it went well, man.
Feedback on everything? No, I think it went well.
I think, you know, the thing about it is that like, you know, a lot of people don't realize how simple success, or whatever that is, is. And you know, at the end of the day, it's not about like the technology. It's rarely about the technology. Yeah, I think it's really about just like picking up the phone 100 times a day.
Yeah, and the phone doesn't have to be like actual— it could be anything. It's like literally like go and talk to customers, you know. I know people that are doing outside sales and they just will go into an office and like it's the same. It's funnel metrics, you know. It's like feed the top of your funnel. I think so many people rely on like—
yeah, and that's not unique to like Lafayette. That's like everywhere. Like I've been listening to like 150 cities in 2 years. Everywhere else people think it's all about the tech and it's not. Right, just like pick up the phone, talk to people.
The one guy did have a good point, like there has to be a product of value there, which I totally think is valid. You know, it's like you can't be selling snake oil. But at the same time, it's like if you have any type of product where they can get value, you can position it in a certain way, you can sell it, you can figure it out. And then those sales will help you also figure out product as well.
That's it, right? It's like at the end of the day, like it's so interesting, like particularly in towns like this where there's a university, people get hung up in the technology, like, oh, look at all the tech. The reality is your customer's buying because you either save them time or make them money. Or something like that, right? And so the sooner you can get that in your head and start talking that way, a plumber doesn't buy from you because like that's the coolest thing.
Yeah, they just—
Right, or an agency doesn't buy from you because it's the coolest thing.
They need their time back.
Exactly.
They need to make more money, you know?
Something that differentiates them, makes them more money, you know? So people just need to like understand that the goal here is to build businesses, not do startups.
Love it, yeah, awesome. Now we're gonna go have some ramen. See you guys tomorrow. So first of all, I'm gonna put this down so I can do my formal outro. So thank you guys for following along. I appreciate it. This is gonna be what, day 4? 4 of season 2 of the vlogs. If you guys are new here, my name's Ryan Shank. We're building Phone Wagon from the ground up. Hope you guys are out there working hard, being pioneers, being wagonaires. Peace.
