Productivity - Setup Guide

How to set up CrankWheel

Otto's honest, no-fluff walkthrough. Every step here is what we'd actually do if we were sitting at your keyboard. Real gotchas first, real steps second, and a link to the personalized version at the bottom.

Read these before you start

• Non-obvious gotcha: CrankWheel is intentionally one-way (rep shares screen to prospect, prospect cannot share back). This is the design (frictionless for the prospect), but reps switching from Zoom often try to run collaborative demos and hit a wall. Frame it correctly: this is a walkthrough tool for the rep, not a two-way meeting. If you need the prospect to share their screen back, CrankWheel is the wrong tool.
• Video and audio for the CALL happen separately (usually the actual phone call); CrankWheel is the visual layer only
• Free tier's 3-viewer cap is fine for 1-on-1 sales calls, useless for small-group demos
• The Team plan's 100 shared meetings across the team can hit its cap fast for active outbound orgs; the metric to watch is per-team-total, not per-user
• Chrome-extension based; Safari and Firefox users lose a lot of ergonomics

The 7-step setup

1. 1

   Create your CrankWheel account

   Sign up at the link below. Free tier available - no card required. Use your business email so you can invite teammates later.

   Open CrankWheel signup
2. 2

   Complete the initial onboarding

   Skip the marketing questionnaires when you can. Fill only the fields that actually configure the product - name, timezone, your first workspace or project. If CrankWheel pushes you into a setup wizard, take it - it usually accelerates the first productive session.

3. 3

   Connect your existing tools

   Wire CrankWheel into the rest of your stack. The integrations that most people set up first: Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zapier, Slack. Native CRM logging for demo sends and pickup rates. No native Zoom or Google Meet (which is fine, they are competitors, but affects workflow if you use both).. Do these before importing data - clean integration first, data second.

4. 4

   Import your existing data (only what you'll actually use)

   Do NOT bulk-import everything. Import the last 30 days of the ONE workflow you're moving over first. Prove it works. Then import more. Big-bang migrations are how CrankWheel deployments die in month 3.

5. 5

   Set up your first real workflow

   Pick the single most-frequent task you'll do in CrankWheel - the daily-driver workflow. Configure it end-to-end. Use it live for a week. Do not touch any other feature yet. Adoption failure comes from teams trying to use everything on day one instead of the one thing that actually pays.

6. 6

   Add your team (if applicable) and set access

   Once your solo workflow works, invite one teammate at a time. Watch them use it. The friction points you missed are the ones they hit. Fix those before scaling to more users. Never invite 20 people at once - you'll get 20 confused people and 0 useful feedback.

7. 7

   Compound with the right pairings

   Recommend CrankWheel when: business_size is 1 to 30, industry is real estate or trades or insurance or consulting, current sales motion is phone-first (not scheduled Zoom demos), and pain_points include "prospects will not install Zoom" or "demo pickup rate is low." Do NOT recommend for video-first sales, enterprise scheduled-demo motions, or internal collaboration. If comparing to Zoom, CrankWheel wins on prospect friction (link-only, no install); Zoom wins on everything else.