In an exclusive interview with NewsX, Arham Pratap Jain, CEO, Trucknetic, opened up about his company, its association with the trucking industry, upcoming projects, and much more. Arham spoke about how he has managed to build his company, Trucknetic, from scratch and shared his experience.
Speaking about the idea and objective behind the company, he said, “I started my career as a social entrepreneur, where I stayed for three to four years. Later, I transitioned into investment banking. I was not enjoying the job and always wanted to be an entrepreneur, so I joined my family business, which was related to trading. Trading is closely related to logistics. There, I got exposed to the logistics market of the country. We face a lot of challenges in procuring vehicles inside and outside the market when it comes to road transportation. That made me think about what is wrong with the industry. No one has been able to look into the industry the way it is. It kind of makes me put my thinking cap on. I took a sabbatical after a year from the business for three months and started interacting with a lot of stakeholders, starting from those who have trucks, fleet owners, transporters, enterprises, and corporate, and started to make sense of the whole ecosystem. I figured that there were a lot of problems and white space in the industry. There are challenges. “ He added, “The entire supply chain is a lot more expensive because a lot of stakeholders are involved, who are not putting any value into the system, yet making money off the side, whereas end customers are getting exploited, so that’s how I started the company in 2019.”
When asked about what made him name the company Trucknetic, he responded, “When it comes to the name, I got the name at 3 AM in the morning while I was sleeping. I just felt like buying this domain name, Trucknetic. If the name is broken down, it’s Truck Plus Kinetic, which means a truck should always be in motion with kinetic energy. It echoed with the purpose.”
“We are a one-stop solution for all kinds of trucks, from small trucks to heavy-duty trucks. We do B2C to B2B, and we do intercity to the interstate. Anybody who wants a truck can come to our platform. We have reduced lead time substantially, from two days to thirty minutes to three hours. We have been able to reduce the freight costs for the shippers because we are using high-end technology like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other automation software to bring down another cost for the shippers and to bring down the cost of logistics in the country, which is 18% of the GDP as compared to 8–10% globally. Every single year we are losing close to $45 billion due to demand and supply mismatch, “he added.
Talking about securing funding for his company, to which he said, “The growth has really accelerated. We started just before Covid, but it was a blessing in disguise because with Covid, people have started accepting digital platforms like ours. They have seen how businesses can be disrupted and must think outside the box to keep the business running. When it comes to the funding, I put in all my savings in the beginning. We also got some awards, funds, and grants for the company.”