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At age 23, with a newborn daughter and wife to support, founder Mark Drager quits his low-paying job and launches Phanta Media, the corporate video production company that would one day become SalesLoop.

After a year and a half of scraping to get by — living well below the poverty line, being put on social assistance and almost going bankrupt — Mark hires his first full-time employee: a minimum-wage production assistant.

Facing the depths of the Great Recession, all paying work gets put on hold or cancelled. Mark runs out of cash (again), fires his one and only staff member and seriously contemplates shutting the company down. Fearing he would one day regret giving up on Phanta Media, Mark decides to give it one last shot and borrows $50K, finds a headhunter and hires an awesome sales guy. To keep the company afloat he doesn’t pay himself for 6 months, something he was embarrassed about for years.

Learning that a company is only as good as its team and ability to deliver on big promises, every dollar is re-invested in great people and building Phanta Media’s portfolio. A full-time producer and editor join the team, with the producer going on to become a pivotal part of our growth: leading the majority of our top projects and winning most of our industry awards.

Reaching a milestone most startups never hit — a 5th anniversary — we make massive strides in developing a truly unique approach to video. That approach? The foundations for the SalesLoop. Although at the time, we called it a Communications Analysis (ridiculously corporate, we know).

Punching well above our weight, Phanta Media wins its first five industry awards. A massive achievement as the winnings include the prestigious Cine Golden Eagle award for Digital Reality Series. The other winner that year? Gamestop. Imagine that. Our no-budget YouTube series that follows race car drivers wins alongside Gamestop's ridiculously high-budget e-sports show.

Seeing that our unique approach (SalesLoop), high standards, and audaciously ambitious team outgrew old-fashioned corporate video, we become a video-centric agency — expanding our services to include campaign strategy, creative development and distribution.

It may have taken 7 years, but 2014 marks the first year we break $1 million in revenue, grow our team to 11 full-timers, and produce our first national television campaign for Sunwing Airlines.

Having focused mainly on the Toronto market, we expand our reach producing projects across Canada, the U.S., and the Caribbean.

Backed by the effectiveness of the SalesLoop methodology and an ever more commoditized market, we launch a new performance-based advertising offering to bridge the gap between strategy, creative, and media/reporting — giving us a direct, hands-on understanding of what it takes to create work that works.

The SalesLoop Brand Strategy process is launched. Hard lessons are learned. And, the very first client to work through the process is still a client today.

Now, more than 10 years in, our team has expanded internationally, we test a work-from-home model (which would come in handy in 2020) and make key investments in the performance-based advertising team. It’s also the one time we produce two national television campaigns for two different clients at the same time. One campaign sees us partnering with the Toronto Raptors during their Championship year, and the other gives us the chance to use a radio hit from the group Great Big Sea and make national press.

Our long-time video editor Louis Vazenios is named COO, bringing a new focus on heart and hustle to the team. Mark partners with his friend Evan Carmichael to launch the "Something To Prove" podcast, which goes on to release more than 150 episodes.

What do they say about best-laid plans? With the global pandemic putting all business and growth plans on hold, Mark launches the eyebrow-raising business and mindset podcast, We Do Hard Things (renamed The Mark Drager Show). It's a podcast that shares untold stories and the lessons learned from those who have faced fears, taken big risks, and chased down dreams.

Having bunkered down and ridden out the shitstorm that was 2020, we take the opportunity to question everything. Looking at the best and worst parts of what Phanta Media has become, we get back to our roots and restructure the business to focus only on what we do best: using the SalesLoop framework to create badass brands, unique positioning, killer offers, and content that’s so good, it can’t be ignored.​

The completion of the restructure is marked with Phanta Media’s rebrand as SalesLoop.