Ten years of auditions. Eight missed months. One spreadsheet that changed everything.
I'm David Wunderlich. I spent ten years as an actor in Los Angeles — auditioning, getting rejected, hustling, living with the constant uncertainty of “will this be the one?” It's a strange apprenticeship, but it teaches you things: reading people, telling a story, handling rejection without letting it wreck you, performing under pressure when it counts.
Then I transitioned to commercial pest control sales — B2B outside sales, driving a territory, knocking doors. I was 34, and I had no idea what I was doing. But I was hungry, and I had nothing to lose. It turned out the actor's toolkit made me good in the room. What it didn't make me was consistent.
The wall
Here's the honest truth: I missed my goal 8 of my first 10 months on the job. I was working 50–60 hours a week and failing — and the worst part was I couldn't figure out why. I hadn't been given the tools to succeed. No data, no visibility, no idea where it was going wrong. A good month and a bad month felt exactly the same while they were happening.
I tried CRMs. None of them were built for the way an outside rep actually works — a truck, a route, thirty doors a day, and about ninety seconds between stops to log anything.
The shift
So I did two things. I set a hard goal for myself — a real number, written down, no excuses. And I started tracking everything: every attempt, every connection, every appointment, every proposal, every sale, in the spreadsheet that became this tracker. Over two years I've logged more than 2,000 door knocks in it.
Everything became clear. For the first time I could see my own funnel — which weeks were actually good, which stage was bleeding prospects, where the next hour of effort should go. That's the part nobody tells you: with clean data, the goal becomes perfectly clear. It stops being a hope and becomes a plan — this many attempts, this many appointments, this many proposals. From there it's just a matter of effort, and effort was never my problem.
I hit my goal 6 of the next 7 months. No trick. No extra hours. The breakthrough wasn't working harder — it was seeing where I was leaking, and fixing that.
Why Pipeway exists
Reps started asking for my spreadsheet. I kept giving it away (you can still get it — it's free). But manual tracking, honestly, is a chore — the discipline is the hard part, and a spreadsheet gives you nothing back on the days you need a push.
So I built Pipeway: the same system as an app. Log a door knock with a tap or a closed deal with your voice in seconds. Keep a streak alive the way a fitness app keeps you running. And every morning, an analytics engine reads your funnel and tells you the one thing that needs your attention today — grounded in your own numbers, never invented.
I'm not a Silicon Valley founder. I'm a working sales rep who still knocks doors, built by necessity into a toolmaker. Pipeway is the tool I wish someone had handed me on day one — and I'm building it in the field, with the reps who use it.
— David