Episode 16 now available!

Ep 16 - Russell From, President & Co-Founder, WayFi Wireless

​The Invisible Tech Changing How We Connect​

Russ From spent years at Verizon flying to data centers around the world. He kept noticing the same problem...

There are still places where cell phones just don't work (and they should).

The traditional fix costs a hundred grand or more. Turns out there's a technology called Passpoint that's been around for over a decade, and hardly anyone knew it existed.

WayFi Wireless changed that.

Today they have over 10,000 wifi radios running across 1,200 locations worldwide. Dane County Airport. Las Vegas casinos. Disney and Universal theme parks. Central Park.

And they recently won the award for Best Open Roaming Deployment in the world for 2025, beating out Cisco and other major players.

This conversation covers the early days of putting up cellular radios on Madison rooftops, the pivot to wifi that unlocked their growth, raising a $2 million seed round from telecom VCs outside Wisconsin, and going fully bootstrapped and profitable after the pivot.

Russ is now giving away free equipment to small businesses and nonprofits through their Coverage Across America program.

His goal: a million wifi radios!

→ Listen to the Interview​

The Startup Wisconsin Podcast is Presented by Valency Fund​

Topics discussed

• Passpoint technology: how cell phones automatically connect to wifi without popups, logins, or apps
• Why carriers pay for this (churn reduction, cost savings) and why businesses don't pay a dime
• The pivot from CBRS cellular radios on rooftops to wifi, and why that changed everything
• How blockchain is accelerating carrier payments in the wifi monetization space
• Raising $2 million from telecom VCs, then going fully bootstrapped and profitable
• The Coverage Across America program giving free equipment to small businesses and nonprofits
• How WayFi beat Cisco for a global industry award by publishing 200+ free technical guides
• Scaling from Madison rooftops to 258 carriers across multiple continents

→ Listen to the Interview​

Key learnings

Passpoint has been around for a decade, and you've probably never heard of it.

This was the foundation of the entire conversation. Passpoint, also called Hotspot 2.0, lets cell phones automatically connect to wifi networks without popups, logins, or apps. The carriers push profiles to phones so they recognize trusted networks and jump on seamlessly. The technology has existed for over ten years, but adoption was slow because wifi wasn't as reliable, carrier participation was limited, and vendor support was weak.

All of that has changed. The top three US carriers now support it, most enterprise wifi equipment works with it out of the box, and the experience is completely seamless. WayFi's bet was that the technology was finally ready. The missing piece wasn't the tech. It was evangelism. Nobody knew this existed, and nobody was making it easy to set up. That's the gap WayFi filled.

For anyone running a business, school, or nonprofit in Wisconsin with cell phone dead zones: this technology probably already works on your existing equipment. If it's less than five years old, WayFi's engineers can configure it remotely in 15 to 25 minutes. No licensing fees. No installation costs. Just a new SSID added to the network.

Carriers pay for this because dead zones cost them customers.

Here's the part that surprised me most. The businesses don't pay anything. The carriers pay WayFi to help organizations set up Passpoint-enabled wifi. Why? Because when a customer's phone works everywhere, they don't switch carriers. Dead zones cause churn, and churn is expensive.

Russ explained that the larger carriers are primarily motivated by reducing churn. They'd rather invest in wifi offload than lose frustrated customers to a competitor. International carriers have a different angle: they use it for cost savings, avoiding expensive roaming fees by routing traffic through wifi instead. Either way, the business, school, or nonprofit hosting the equipment doesn't pay a dime.

Some commercial locations can even turn it into a revenue stream. Carriers pay based on data usage, and WayFi shares that revenue with commercial partners. Hotels, restaurants, malls, entertainment venues, anywhere with high foot traffic and extended phone usage can see their wifi equipment essentially pay for itself. For some businesses, the wifi refresh every three to five years goes from being a cost center to a revenue driver.

They started on rooftops with cellular radios before pivoting to wifi.

WayFi didn't start with wifi. They started by putting up CBRS cellular radios on rooftops in Madison and Milwaukee. Russ described being up on the same rooftops where he used to work installing equipment for Verizon, now putting up his own little radio next to their big ones.

It worked. Phones connected. Carriers paid. But it was complex. FCC registration, site maintenance, expensive equipment, limited range. After proving the concept, Russ and his co-founders realized wifi was the easier, more scalable path. Same outcome for users, way less friction to deploy.

That pivot is what unlocked everything. It's a clean example of how the first version of a startup doesn't have to be the final version. The rooftop cellular work proved the market existed and that carriers would pay. The wifi pivot made it scalable. Russ didn't treat the earlier work as failure. It was the validation that gave them the confidence to simplify.

They beat Cisco for a global award by opening the gates.

WayFi won the award for Best Open Roaming Deployment in the world for 2025. They were up against Cisco and other major players. How does a bootstrapped Wisconsin startup beat companies with thousands of employees and billions in revenue?

Russ's answer was straightforward: they focused on being easy to work with. They published over 200 videos showing people how to configure Passpoint, even if they don't use WayFi. They wrote free technical guides. They answered the phone. In an industry full of gatekeeping, WayFi opened the gates.

The standards bodies recognized that approach because WayFi was taking a massive support load off of them. Schools, colleges, startups, and small businesses that would normally flood the standards organizations with questions could just watch a WayFi video instead. That generosity with knowledge, giving away the how-to even if it doesn't directly generate revenue, is what built the reputation that won the award.

Fundraising was easier outside Wisconsin, but they outgrew the need for it.

WayFi raised a $2 million seed round early on from telecom-focused VCs. None of them were in Wisconsin. Russ talked to plenty of local investors, but the ones who moved fastest were in New York and on the coasts. The most interested local investors were actually in Minneapolis.

That's not a knock on Wisconsin. It's just reality for niche, hard-tech startups. Telecom infrastructure isn't the kind of pitch that resonates with generalist investors who are looking at SaaS dashboards and consumer apps.

But here's the interesting part: after pivoting to wifi and refining the model, WayFi became fully bootstrapped and profitable. No debt. No outside investors. None of the earlier investors are still a part of it. Just revenue from carriers funding operations. They essentially outgrew the need for outside capital by finding a model that works on its own. For founders who feel stuck in the fundraising hamster wheel, WayFi's trajectory is worth studying. Sometimes the pivot that simplifies your product also simplifies your funding model.

Patience and curiosity beat speed every time.

Russ didn't rush into entrepreneurship. He spent years at Verizon, volunteered as a mentor in Milwaukee, helped first-time founders, and slowly built his network. His first startup idea was a mobile computer repair shop. It went nowhere. WayFi wasn't his first idea either. The cellular radio approach was essentially a first draft that got rewritten.

His advice for people still in corporate jobs who have the entrepreneurial itch: stay curious, keep showing up, and don't get discouraged that your coworkers don't share the bug. Most people want stability. That's fine. Find your people outside of work through meetups, speaking events, Discord channels, whatever.

He also referenced something I've heard from a lot of founders: people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year, but drastically underestimate what they can accomplish over five to ten. WayFi is a perfect case study for that. From rooftop radios in Madison to 10,000+ deployments across the world, with Las Vegas casinos and theme parks on both coasts. That didn't happen in a year. It happened because Russ and his team kept showing up.

Every small business and nonprofit in Wisconsin should be using this.

Russ was pretty direct about this. There is no reason any small business or nonprofit in Wisconsin should have cell phone dead zones. The Coverage Across America program provides free equipment to organizations that need it. All they need is internet and power. Plug and play. The only ask: just use it.

They've already been working with the local Chamber of Commerce to get hardware into small businesses. They've talked to both political parties about providing equipment for events and voting locations. They even flew to Washington DC to brief Wisconsin's senator on the program.

In Madison specifically, you can walk around the Capitol Square and ping-pong between businesses that are already running WayFi's service. Restaurants, bars, museums, fitness centers, nonprofits, all live. The next target is Milwaukee, where they just signed a rep with 25 years of local tech experience. The goal is a million wifi radios. Right now they're at 10,610. There's a long way to go, but the trajectory is clear and the product is free for the organizations that need it most.

Upcoming episodes 👀

• Angela Damiani (Midwest Founders Community)
• Justin Byers (Axio BioPharma)
• Jon Eckhardt (UW Madison School of Business)
• Joey Friedli (SpecterSight / Formerly Trashpoint)

What is the Startup Wisconsin Podcast?

It's a new show where you can learn about Wisconsin's growing tech scene. Hear the stories of startups, founders, investors, and the incredibly generous people making it happen every single day.

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