Redefining The Transport Ecosystem With The Newly Emerged Venture ‘Mytrux’
The concept & culture of start – Up in the time & age of 2019 is no more alien. From National to International, Regional & Local, the wave of Start – Ups in India is overflowing. The country is at this particular juncture the known mecca of all sorts of Start-Ups. Some failing to gain money power & momentum to some venture takes off like a brilliant star. The game of Start-Ups are saturated, but still not saturated.
However, in the middle of such conjoint observations comes the mention of Mytrux. A start-up that has its dedicated focus on reshaping & restructuring the transport ecosystem. Founded by a Pune based team, the DNA of this venture is fresh & unheard of. So to know it more, let us go through a detailed interview given by the creator & team members of Mytrux
1.What is the Name of Your Venture? Any specific reason for this name?
Mytrux, is the name of my venture.The name signifies a single platform to manage trucks , loads in trucks , booking , digital L-R , POD , Driver , Delivery , Demand , Downtime.
2.Who is your target Audience/Clients?
Our platforms connects Service User ( Manufacturing , OEM , Trading , 3PL , Custom Broker ) with Service Provider ( Transporter , Broker , Booking agents ) hence both are our audience with integration to SMS & Payment Gateway for auto alerts , notifications.
3.Where is your venture based (city, state, country) & What are your geographical target areas?
We are based in Pune , India & soon will be registering our office in Singapore. Moving forward USA , Europe , Africa , Middle East are our focused markets.
4.What problems does your venture resolve? What are your products or services?
We are focusing on addressing 3 challenges for both service User & Service Provider.
1.Real time information on movement of Vehicles , Drivers , Goods with the Help of Smartphone which is an alternative to GPS hardware which not present in 99% of the vehicles in India. Today India has almost 55Mn Commercial vehicles & Mobile tracking is the best alternative which requires no Installation , no recurring expense.
We have also developed Driver Attendance Module on mobile with Punching Time unto Salary slip generation with their Photo ID & Driver Licence.
2.Supplier Digitisation – Vendors , Transporters can be connected on “Mytrux” platform with interface to manage advance bookings, tracking ,billing , POD ( Proof of Delivery) with unique QR code for each transaction. All the data can be viewed with secured login by respective parties for transactions.
As a e-way Suvidha provider we eliminated lot of duplication work for customers / transporters to handle multiple portals for similar transport transactions.
3.Private Exchange for Demand & Supply – Making the Loads & Vehicles available to our certified Service Users & Service Providers in a secured environment with assurance on security of Goods & Payments. Better Asset Utilization , Driver Monitoring ,Digital PODs.
5.Share the idea or story behind the venture. How did it come to existence? What motivated you to start your own venture?
Coming from International Freight background where the air-waybill & bill of lading is used as a transit document , I realised there is no uniformity in transport ecosystem & everything is handwritten. Secondly vehicles waiting for want of L/R ( transit document ) as 70% of the vehicles in India are managed by brokers & handing over the service providing company document at loading point creates delay , traffic & human intervention.
How we bring in uniformity & eliminate this waste?
We introduced digital L/R & Online Booking system which has duel interface to manage transactions in real-time.
6.Who are your biggest competitors and how do you differentiate yourself from them?
When we have to run fast & reach a goal we don’t look on side. We are working hard to be different by doing the same thing differently.
7.How did you hire your first team members? What skills do you want in your employees/team?
Our first team member was a Android Developer as we knew that Mobile is going to be heart of this disruption. We have a great team which is Young , Less on experience but high on experiment. Now we have team of 10 Members & moving forward it will be double as we focus more on AI / BI .
8.What expansion plans are you looking for the next 2 years, next 5 years?
Focus on more of AI based information to our users for informed decision making to user we have high stickiness & usability with 10000 users in 2 years & 100000 users in 5 years which are very achievable numbers.
9.Where do you want to see yourself in next 10 years?
In the next ten years I want that, we become a experience & knowledge centre for all transport community , as we would be bringing is many more features to our product as we move ahead.
10.What are your immediate goals over the next 1, 3, 6 and 12 months?
Focus on success stories where we have global OEMs , 3Pl companies , Transporter as Users & try to create a domain specialisation with increment in User. To have 12 Sales Offices in all Metros / Sub Metros by the year end 2019.
11.Have you raised any funding? Or have any plans for the funding?
We are bootstrap at present & yes as we have paying customers now , & completely look forward to raise funds soon.
12.What were the problems you faced during the starting days and how did you resolve them?
User experience , market approach , as we started talking to people specially the transporters / brokers we were & given thumps down stating no one will use this. But as we started going to manufacturers they started appreciating & started looking at us as an saviour to bring value to their present logistics ecosystem.
As they have multiple transporters & to monitor , educate, control is a challenge. Our interface helps them to bring in “Digitisation” with integration to supplier ERP systems to manage all the business digitally with minimum human intervention unto direct tracking of drivers through smart phones.
13.What was the most challenging part of your journey till now? How did you overcome those challenges?
Business OR Product is just like a movie as your 1 year efforts defined in 1 hr if this is a HIT or FLOP… , here at least we have a chance to make the changes & relaunch the product with customer requirement. Hence continuous Market Study , Meeting different domain customers , convincing them to see what we have built & what is their opinion is very crucial at the same time necessary.
Customers are smart & they know what they want. If they see confidence in you I am sure they are the best teachers to improve your product.
14.What are your hobbies? What do you do in your non-work time?
Sports lover with cricketer at district level, footballer in school , my hobby is now good food. Travelling to new places , admiring beauty of nature , exploring good local food.
15.Whom do you consider your idol or biggest motivator?
Steve Jobs…, as I firmly believe people don’t use technology they buy technology & if your product is great they will buy it anyway.
16.What do you feel is the major difference between entrepreneurs and those who work for someone else?
Entrepreneur first works for employees & then self , In employment it is exactly reverse.
17.If you had the chance to start your career over again, what would you do differently?
I would have become a teacher but that’s exactly I would do in next few years. We have a book called “Connected Digital Transport Management” & I want to bring in more sophistication, intelligence & new breed of transporters in industry.
18.How has being an entrepreneur affected your family & Social life?
Its a proud moment for all…., as I am the first entrepreneur in my family & surround with friends who all come from business background.
19.Anything, you would like to say to our readers or upcoming entrepreneurs?
Be patient , committed & trust what you are doing , the world will disappoint you every day & you might blackout when you are just one day away from success. Don’t Give Up!!!
20.Tell us something about your education & family background.
Coming from a Defence background the things were not the best but no complain, it helped us to become more organized & smart. With Diploma in International transport & executive study at Harverd Business School “ Building Global Enterprise” made me start thinking , can I build one ?
21.What is your USP which makes it unique & different from other start-ups in similar domains.
Experience , Domain Knowledge , Patience , Belief in People , Self convincing than Investor. If our product is great & solving real time problem which helps the country , community to grow we will have no trouble in raising money.
22. What do you think is the biggest threat to the success of small businesses & Start-ups today?
All want to be famous….., too soon that too on inventors money. Getting a anchor paying customer is very very important & rather than wasting time on raising money , focus on on boarding customer , your chances of getting successful are much higher.
23. Do you consider yourself successful and by what means do you measure success?
We will be full if we call ourselves successful , as we have just started testing fruits for our patience & persistence over the years. When all the transport ecosystems becomes paperless , when all the drivers & their families have secured life , when a MBA wants to get into transport willingly , when drivers are treated as humans, we have a long way to go.
24.Please share complete name, address, phone number, email id & website of Your Business & Contact Person
Mytrux Infotech Pvt.Ltd
506 Lunkad Sky Station
Viman Nagar , Pune
Mobile : +91 8554982603
Email : [email protected]
Web : www.mytrux.com
