Ignite Startups: The Future of Voice AI for Businesses with Will Bodewes | Ep245

What if the next great AI company isn’t trying to replace people… but simply answering the phone better than anyone else ever has?That’s the bet Will Bodewes is making.Will is the co-founder and CEO of Phonely, a YC-backed startup building conversational AI agents that answer business phone calls with natural voice and deep workflow integrations. Before founding Phonely, Will competed at the NCAA level in cross-country skiing, launched early startup experiments that caught the attention of artists like Chance the Rapper, and began a PhD in artificial intelligence before leaving academia to build. Today, Phonely helps companies capture missed revenue by ensuring every customer call gets answered, booked, and converted. In this episode, Will joins Brian Bell to unpack the real story behind building a voice AI company—from the messy zero-to-one phase to scaling customers from $7/month pilots to $70,000/month deployments.In Today's Episode We Discuss:00:01 Introduction to Will Bodewes and Phonely00:32 Will’s Origin Story and Growing Up in Rural Wisconsin01:01 Cross-Country Skiing and Competing at the NCAA Level01:30 First Startup: Bluetooth Speakers Inside Artwork02:46 From Startup Experiments to a PhD in Artificial Intelligence03:24 The Beginning of Phonely and the Vision for Voice AI04:03 Early Founder Lessons and the Long-Term Mindset05:25 Why It Was the Right Time to Build Voice AI06:25 Why Voice Is a Bigger Opportunity Than Chat08:23 Finding Product-Market Fit for Phonely09:36 The Reality of Building Products Customers Actually Want10:17 Why Customers Don’t Know What They Want11:53 The Power of White-Glove Onboarding for Startups13:37 Early Customers and the First $7 Deal15:19 Vertical vs Horizontal AI Platforms17:36 AI Replacing Jobs and the Philosophy Behind Automation19:23 Customer Stories and Impact on Businesses20:27 Using Phonely Internally and Product QA21:28 Surprising Insights from Customer Use Cases23:09 Building the Voice AI Tech Stack24:25 Phonely’s Onboarding Process and Freemium Model27:27 Building Team Culture and Hiring Principles28:12 Product Momentum and What’s Next for Phonely29:13 Long-Term Vision for Voice AI30:27 Rapid Fire: Contrarian AI Beliefs31:58 The Most Important Skill for Founders33:01 Hard Founder Decisions and Ignoring Investor Advice34:40 Future Developments in AI and Browser Agents36:00 Why Phone Calls Are Underrated37:46 Risks in Voice AI and Regulatory Challenges38:26 Advice for Researchers Thinking About Becoming FoundersAlong the way, Will shares a refreshingly honest founder philosophy: if you’re starting a company for the glamour, you’re doing it wrong.“Don’t be a founder unless you have no other choice but to be a founder.” “Customers never tell you what they want. They describe their problems — and you have to figure out how to solve them.” From endurance athletics to AI infrastructure, Will’s journey reveals a deeper pattern: the founders who win are often the ones willing to run the longest race.And sometimes that race starts with a simple idea: what if businesses never missed another phone call again?Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6Ga6v0YUsHotLhjap67uu5Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ignite-conversations-on-startups-venture-capital-tech/id1709248824Follow Will Bodewes on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-bodewes/Follow Will Bodewes on X: https://x.com/BodewesWil2818Follow Brian on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bblinkedin/Visit Our Website: https://www.teamignite.venturesSubscribe to Our Newsletter: https://insights.teamignite.ventures/👂🎧 Watch, listen, and follow on your favorite platform: https://tr.ee/S2ayrbx_fL 🙏 Join the conversation on your favorite social network: https://linktr.ee/theignitepodcast