How an Indian startup is bringing unorganized truck industry towards a structured one? Bridging the gap that exists between the customers and the service providers by bringing about an order in the transport sector.

There are almost 50 Lakh drivers in India and almost 1 Lakh vehicles touching Delhi NCR. The truck operators operate only with 40 percent of the installed capacity, the major reasons being lack of transparency and loyalty. The transit logistic cost is 13.5 - 15 percent in our country, whereas it is just 9 percent in developed economies.

This is where Truckmandi comes in and promises to make avail such provisions through their platform. They offer technology which has the potential to reduce this cost to 5 - 7.5 percent.

Founded in 2014 by Ankit Singh, Anurag Jain and Nishat Singh, Truckmandi is trying to build a bulwark against some major problems such as inefficiencies that are spread throughout the industry. It offers its customers an efficient and pro-active platform that caters to their various needs and demands quickly and effectively.

It is a platform where they connect vehicle owners or transporters directly to business or customers who are in need of their services. This innovation to a large extent was able to bridge the gap that existed between the customers and the service providers by bringing about an order in the transport sector.

In tete-a-tete with Entrepreneur India, Ankit Singh, Founder, TruckMandi.in share his entrepreneurial journey and his mission and vision to take his startup to next level.

How did the idea of Truckmandi come to be?

The journey to entrepreneurship began when I was in conversation with Amit Saraogi, Chairman, CII, Agriculture Eastern and the owner of Anmol Feeds. I realized that most businesses were plagued with several logistics problems. He faced serious and daunting problems with the transportation of the final processed goods out of his factory to country's different locations. Moreover, he faced challenges involving placement and delivery of vehicles, not getting the best prices due to daily fluctuation of prices, involvement of multiple middle man and many more.

This is when we three, Anurag, Nishant and I intensively brainstormed and engaged in long contemplation for a solution to this problem and hence the inception of Truckmandi brought to life in October 2014.

Explain us the process of how Truckmandi works?

It is an easy process and absolutely hassles free. Companies places enquiries which are sent to multiple truck owners and transporters based on our algorithm and the best priced quoted by a vendor of a particular rating is placed for the job.

What is unique about the startup?

Our intercity marketplace for Trucks lacks intelligence in matchmaking of available trucks and their demand, we help resolve it.

What type of products/services does the customer usually look for while searching?

We get all sorts of queries, be it individual based or companies, from home goods to industrial products. We provide them with logistics solution that can be trusted at a good price.

Who are your biggest competitors? And how do you plan to tackle them?

Our biggest competitors are offline players who handle almost 100 percent of the industry volume.

Tell us a bit about your revenue model?

We take 2 percent of the transactions.

How has your experience been so far?

This industry is much unorganized than thought of and a lot of energy is spent on vendor education and attempts to solve corrupt practices.

What are your future plans?

A player who resolves this problem statement will be solving problems of more than 50,000 companies. Our plan post few years is to expand and take the Truckmandi platform to other countries.

How many customers have you served so far.

We currently have 500 partner companies using our technology and 300 partner transporters/truck owners. The team has a monthly transaction run rate valued at 1crore, which is growing at the rate of 400 percent. They are based out of Delhi-NCR, and are operational over routes in Himachal, Punjab, Haryana, UP and Rajasthan.

How has been the growth since launch? Please share MoM growth pattern.

1.5-2x month on month

Tell us a little bit about the team (based out of, team size etc.) and co-founders?

Our team consists of 25 members. Apart from Co-founders- We have Gaurav who was in Snapdeal's Tech team, Sudeep who was in Snapdeal product Team, Ashish Gupta who headed production at OyO, Akshay who heads Business Development and Ashish was an instructor in Schlumberger Operations at Kellyville US.

Market size that you are targeting.

We are looking at a 100 billion dollar target.

Currently, where is your presence. What are plans to expand your reach?

Ludhiyana, Haridwar, Delhi and will Cover 24 cities in 15th month.

Who are you targeting at?

We are targeting big white goods companies, manufacturing companies and SMEs too.

What is your current traction? How many users are currently using your platform?

Biggest Fleet of Indian Registered Trucks - 10,000 trucks data, 1284 Transporters, launching 3400 Queries handled, more than 300 companies served.

How many percentage of repetitive users are their?

We have served more than 100 companies and SMEs and more than 66 percent of them are repeat users of our platform.