#259 Tarun Aleti's Journey: Disrupting the Logistics Industry through Innovation

0:00:01 - Mehmet
Hello and welcome back to a new episode of the CTO show with Mehmet Today. I'm very pleased joining me from Boston in the US. Tarun, thank you very much for joining the show today. You know the way I love to do it is. I keep to my guests to do it themselves, so the floor is yours, sure thanks, mehmet. 

0:00:20 - Tarun
Hey guys, nice talking to you guys and, mehmet, thanks for giving me this opportunity. My name is Tarun. I am originally from India. I moved to US like 10 years back. I did my masters from Northeastern University and then I worked as a consultant for following like five to seven years. I started like partner in 2018 and then it's like 2021 is when I kind of completely gotten and it's been like a roller coaster ride. We went through a lot of investment rounds, we went through like pickups, right, but the positive side, like right now, we are able to grow very strongly in last one year. So, yeah, exciting times. 

0:01:09 - Mehmet
Great Tarun and again, thank you for being on the show. So you know what I'm interested to know, like you have, I would say, an inspiring story about how did you start it. So, if you can tell me exactly when you decided to transition from data science to entrepreneurship, what were the challenges that you faced while doing this? Especially, you know and I'm sure, like because I passed this, and I know that a lot of people passed this especially when you are, you know, going to this entrepreneurship journey for the first time. So, also, like you know, what were the major things that you managed to overcome? And you know this would be an inspiring story for fellow entrepreneurs, I would say. 

0:02:02 - Tarun
Sure, I mean for me, I wouldn't say, like you know, like in, like, in my early 20s or my late teens, right, like I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I think that was not the case. I think it was mostly once I graduated, once I started working, right, I just the motivation was not coming through for me. Right, I was always looking for something that I could do other than the work. Right, I was trying to be professional as much as I can, right, but the same time, I think, just the inner feeling, like you know, that incomplete feeling, right, and circumstances were like that, and in US, with Visa and all right, I think it it came a point where I wanted to try something, right, yeah, and to be honest, I had no idea beyond that, like you know it, almost. Like I was not and I'm not recommending for people to do what I did. It takes time if you go through my path, which I'm going through now, but everyone has their own journey in a way. But yeah, it was tough, like I had no idea. I just knew that I wanted to do something by myself, what it is. 

I thought like, okay, I had a civil engineering background I did from IIT Bombay in India. Then I did construction management, then I worked data science. I thought maybe, like, whatever footsteps I've taken previously can come together. So I started exploring something in this space, like you know, but I had no idea what was starting point. Right, I just went. I just went with the flow. I learned development myself. I didn't really do it, to be honest. I did all the wrongs on how to start a business, right. 

But yeah, but I think on hindsight, I started. I think that's the biggest difference, I feel like, between many people. Right, sometimes you may not even know what is right way to start, but you need to start right. If you start, then you can. You can move in one way or another way at least. 

0:04:01 - Mehmet
Yeah, 100%. And this is always. You know, we always tell people like you need to take the first step. Of course, it's not always the, as they say, the rosy, you know pinky road that you will be passing through. Now, one thing you decided to go into is, you know, innovating in logistics. Right, yeah, and so what did you find? Because I asked this question usually also to inspire others. So what did you see in that space going wrong? So you decided to innovate there with, you know, the company that you started. 

0:04:44 - Tarun
Yeah. So, like I said, I think for me it was like I knew Logistics because I kind of my first company I worked was in Logistics space right. Then, with civil engineering and with data science, I knew like Logistics space is kind of pretty traditional right, it's kind of non-interfered with tech experience as such. So that was really motivation. I felt like you know, hey, this is a space somehow looks like my journey is kind of coming together right, where I can bring in my personal experience with working in a logistics company before as a data scientist and with civil engineering and things like that. Like you know, to be honest, that's how I started. Did I know my opportunity that's out there? Did I know what disruption we are doing? No, I think those are all things I learned on the fly. Like you know, as we got into it, we took a lot of time to understand which space we are in in real term in business terms, right, but the jump, the leap of faith I took in was based on these assumptions that I had here. 

0:05:49 - Mehmet
So what sets, you know, your approach apart from the traditional methods that you know were being done before? So, because you know, I know, like, also as someone who is trying to enter this space, you must have done something, you know, which is, I mean, different from what all the others are doing, right? 

0:06:10 - Tarun
Yeah, exactly, I mean, today, we know what, how we are differentiating and how we are, you know, different from the market and where do we fit in. Exactly right, but it took it took us time to understand where we are. I think it's really about iterating, right, you need to continue to iterate. I keep saying like no, sometimes I look back and, like you know, for me, every startup, like you know, you really need to understand the problem you are in, right, what problem you're trying to solve. Like not falling in love with the solution and like trying to continue to see, like, hey, the solution match the problem, right, but keeping the problem as you're not stuck, and seeing if there's enough business around it, like you know, is there any enough value that you can create on top of it? 

And then I think the most important thing is can you survive? Like you know, it might take an year. For some, it might take multiple years. Right, it's like do you, are you willing to put in all of that time and effort till you figure it out? And I can tell, like you know, if you do this three, four things again and again, you will figure it out. Like you know, we are all problem solvers, right. So all we need is we need more time, we need more focus, we need more guidance, right. And I think, as you keep doing it, eventually you will figure it out. But you just need to be there till that point happens and most of the people like say, quit it, like you know, like maybe right before it or an year before it, right. So that persistence is, I think, very important. 

0:07:38 - Mehmet
Yeah, exactly, and you know this is I think you would agree with me, tarul like this is what everyone talks about, like, keep trying to iterate to find your product market fit, and this is. You know, it's a journey, it's not like a sprint, right? So you cannot say, okay, hey, this is not. But I would ask you something, tarul, in your opinion, because you mentioned very valid point. So you said sometimes you need to wait a year, sometimes multiple years, but is there any? I would say best practice, like if you, when you should really pivot, like when is you say okay, look, okay, guys, what we are doing, I think it's not resonating in the market. We should do something else. Like, is there some, some signals that will tell you that? 

0:08:20 - Tarun
also, as, well, yeah, I think these are very personal decisions for me Like, yeah, I mean, there are two types of pivoting. Right, you should always like pivot on your solution. You should always pivot on your methodologies, processes, right. But when you pivot on problem itself, like, hey, problem also can be within the same industry, same customers maybe attacking something different, and there's something others like, hey, guys like you know what, let's stop all of this and we'll start something new, right, I think? 

for me, I think it comes down to the person, like you know like I said like for us, like we were very persistent in the same space, right, and today I feel like we are reaping rewards, like we feel it, we feel the growth, we know what is right, what is wrong. And if you ask me same question two years back, I think I wouldn't have had the same confidence or I would have been able to say it right, but today I'm able to because I thought we were persistent with the same thing. Right, we saw the other side. 

We did some minor pivots right, but this kind of stuck to the same industry and same bit of customer, but we tried to find the product market weight and the solutions and things on those lines. So yeah, I think it's challenging. I would always believe, like you know, maybe it's like it's up to the person, like you know, people like you know, but have a plan, have a plan in place that you want to execute, and if things don't fall in line and if you have very less appetite, less appetite for risk, then you should pivot sooner. Yeah, great. 

0:09:55 - Mehmet
I agree with you, tarun. Now I know that you know you have a, I would say love of product management, right, so how this passion you know influenced, you know, the development and success of you know partner. 

0:10:14 - Tarun
Yeah, so, for me, like, for me, like, the partner journey has two forces to it right. One is the entrepreneurship journey. And the second part is like, literally like discovering product management right, Because I was like a data scientist who learned how to code through Coursera to build some prototypes, right. So I was, on this, like you know, expert or haven't had this computer science background, right. It was just like doing some basic coding and building some websites, right? That, too, like when I wanted to start on this idea, right. 

But, then the journey itself takes you to different steps right, you are the developer first, and then you suddenly have to manage team, and then you have to manage bigger team, right. So you need to slowly start wearing different hats and that's how I have evolved, like you know, evolved through this. I have done my share of mistakes in this journey too, right. Looking back, I would definitely say, like, always have a mentor in your early phase, right. Especially when you are not the expertise in the field. Right, if you're trying something new, something you haven't done before, right. I think those will help always to make sure, like you know, they're telling you those small details. It's not easy, like when an expert says you know it's easy to, yeah, it makes sense, but to implant those things and put it as part of your process it takes some maturity. But yeah, I think Dhoda, looking back, and I think partner today is building a Technologisix platform, right. Ultimately, the product will decide how fast can we grow or not grow, right. So a lot of challenges, but resolvable for sure. 

0:12:03 - Mehmet
That's great. Now, you know, you mentioned something also which I think it's very important and I want to hear your opinion on this. So, because you said, like you need to wear multiple hats and then you need to manage multiple things at the same time. Now, one of the things you know when we talk about product and market needs, so you need also to try to see how you can do innovations right. So, in your opinion, how do you balance? You know the concept of innovating your product, you know, with the immediate market needs and demands, but at the same time, you know, without breaking the whole thing. So how do you do this? I mean balance between these two concepts. 

0:12:47 - Tarun
Yeah, I mean they say like product is like a bit of science and art, right. 

So, it's tough to say, like I think everyone has their own ways and a lot of times it's built on kind of I would say intuition, right. But you know it shouldn't just be a guesswork, it shouldn't be like oh, I just feel so strongly about it, right, so you always need to back it up with some kind of arithmetic numbers, right? Maybe something that tells you like, hey, by investing into this, right, you are able to maybe test something else. You know you are able to prove something, right. I think that should be your foundation. Like you know, it's not easy to become completely numbers driven at a early stage, right, to understand the impact and all, but having like fundamental assumptions behind it, why you want to do certain tasks and why you don't want to do. I think that will help in deciding where to iterate. And one of the biggest mistakes many startups do is, like you know, like you start with a problem, right, and these days the expectation is, like you should also have a solution in place, like you have like a prototype, right, you should have a prototype as soon as possible. Like you know, right, and once you have a prototype, the mistake people tend to do is like, as they understand the problem or the keep. 

I feel like we iterate on solution faster than understanding problem right. So in a way, we fall in love more with the solution aspect, right, we keep believing that this is the right solution and we keep improving in it, putting resources. But I feel like once you have a certain MVP and things on those lines, just try to see how it can fit in the market and just go slow, right, go slow in terms of product. You already have an MVP that should more or less solve your problems right, and try to put more effort, even those two, three months into the growth strategy. Like you know, how do you acquire customers? How are you going to do your marketing right? I think all of them. Once you figure out those levers, it will be so easy for you to iterate on your product. But if you iterate on your product continuously, then it becomes a challenge. That's what I have experienced. 

0:14:57 - Mehmet
Great insight, great insight and I love this Tarun, because you know, actually I don't know why it's a very common mistake, although, like, every single one talks about it. You know every single entrepreneur and startup founder and co-founder. They keep telling people from their experience. You know, guys like, don't build a thousand features and push it to the market, like, as you mentioned, focus on solving. You know this specific problem. And then, you know, start to add and then and you know, I think you know something I noticed, you know, when I was preparing so you also like to interact a lot with your customers and you mentioned something about being prepared to sales and marketing. Do you think this is an underrated thing when it comes to startups? So they just think about features and they think that it's going to sell itself by itself? 

0:15:49 - Tarun
Right, yes, I genuinely believe. So. I mean, I feel like it comes from the experience too, right. 

0:15:56 - Mehmet
Like I said. 

0:15:56 - Tarun
I didn't have any prior like entrepreneurship dreams or things like you know my kind of journey any kind of went in the direction right. So for me, like sales marketing, these were all I heard about them because I worked in companies, right. 

0:16:10 - Mehmet
But I didn't really know what is a business? 

0:16:12 - Tarun
like you know, where does it fit in? Right, and I feel like a lot of time, people who start businesses like they have certain experience right, but they need to put themselves out of the comfort zone and understand the bigger picture. How does a business really work, right? Yeah, so I think in those terms like, maybe for a person with a sales background, the other side is kind of a gray area right, and they need to put that effort to understand the other side, right. And similarly, for people who are coming from the tech space right, they need to put aside the technology. 

You will build it, like you know. You will build it because you know it, right, but you need to understand how you build a business, the more crossover knowledge you gain. Either you should be like you should have it, or find team members who have it right. That's why you have co-founders, like you know. These are the people who should be able to have those other skill sets. But more than that, once they have the skill set, that's the first step, right? Second thing is you should be able to still collaborate. It's not like, hey, they do that as I do my task. No, it's like how do you now able to Feed each other with more information that will help you go. I think that's the second thing people might miss out on. Hey, yes, these are all contradicting skills we have, but they don't really collaborate with that detail, though. They are like four founders working in the same space. Right, the crossover information doesn't happen. People tend to be in like grown comfort. I think that's a mistake. 

0:17:38 - Mehmet
Yeah, so so that that is very logical to ruin. And you know now, and while I was also preparing, I was going through your bio and you mentioned about all the mistakes. Also, that happens down the road and you know like sometimes you do like wrong decisions in the product itself. Sometimes you know you hire wrong people. Now I know for a fact that you started the company in an incubator program, right. So Now, when, when and this is something I want to your opinion about so because some people they come with ideas, they go to investors and then they are under the pressure of investors. So, and even when normally they're gonna do mistake, they feel so much pressure. 

Now in incubator I know it's like more relaxed. I mean not relaxed in the sense of relax, but I mean at this, in the incubator you have the access to mentors, you would have access to fund, but still you have this space to To do these mistakes right, which is you cannot avoid them. Actually you, especially if you are a first-time founder. Now my question is you know from your experience and I know like this is comes a lot. You know people comes to me. So if I have an idea today, should I raise and start to get investors before having the MVP, or should I have the MVP first and then I will go and show people hey guys, like I have some traction. You know, I know that there is a demand. I have the data and you come from a data science background and then you know this is the market size. So so, in your opinion, how, which one should come first? I would say, yeah, I mean, for me it's tough, I don't think that one answer that fits For everyone, right, mm-hmm. 

0:19:18 - Tarun
Generally for first-time founders, like you know, if you just go with an idea and like hey, put money like, people will be less willing to write because you're not willing to take the next step. Right, and how much have you build that someone should be willing to trust you with the money right. The credibility is, like hey have been working on this for six months, I have been some prototypes, I have some traction, right. But I think if you're a multi-time founder, then people Take your previous experience and they are maybe willing to just put it in terms of ideas, right, because even for investors it's a risk and reward, right, they understand, like hey, by joining your journey earlier, they're able to reap more rewards, right, so I would put it. I would see it that way. 

I think if your first-time founder, your aim is not to raise money, right, your aim is to Solve something, like you know and that should be a focus, and when you're ready to go, you know and that should be a focus, and when you keep solving this, you might find a need to raise money. Right, most likely you will find a need and you should know whether. How long can you board scrap? That again depends upon your personal risk level, and being more aware about those things will tell you like when is the right time to bring in money? In terms of investors pressure, I have observed like I think, till you are between seed and series A, investors are not going to message you every day saying like, hey, have you hit your next goal right? 

They're just looking on people like us, like you know, hey, there seems to be a cool idea, there seems to be hard working. Right, let me put some money there, right? I think it's really when you go to seed and like series A somewhere in between there, then the bets go higher and then there's a lot of pressure that, okay, where is the value? Are you growing or not growing, right? So, yeah, I think I would put it that way. 

0:21:05 - Mehmet
Yeah, yeah, I think this is a great answer, tarun, and you know this is usually what my guests also. They answer it. There's no one Answer that can fit every scenario and every startup. Each situation is different. But, yeah, generally actually, the advice that you gave About as long as you can still bootstrap and you have the, you know your runways and you are aware about, you know how much cash then you can burn from your own pocket, from mom and dad and family and friends yeah, so or also very cash intensive. 

0:21:46 - Tarun
Like you know, maybe you're building this amazing project but you need to burn a lot of Server calls or things like that, right and. But some business can be completely bootstrap like no, mostly marketplaces, like you bring in value at a time Right, so it's possible to bootstrap, but if you're coming with a very tech heavy, then maybe you need to do a lot of development. Can it be done by one person? You need multiple people. Then the dip. You know there are a lot of factors that go into that, but yeah, yeah, great. 

0:22:16 - Mehmet
you mentioned the marketplace and I know, like you know, you talk about the chicken and egg problem when building marketplace. So can you tell us about this problem and you know how to overcome it? 

0:22:28 - Tarun
Sure, I think. To be honest, I don't think there's always a chicken and egg problem. I feel like you know, if you are solving something, there's always one part of it that should come easy. Okay, if it is very tough to crack both side of the marketplace, then it's extremely challenging. If you need to match every demand with the supply, it is not really a marketplace. It becomes extremely challenging Whenever you are solving a problem that is kind of solved has a chicken and egg. There should be one part which is much more warmer, much more easier to get traction, where you can do some empty promises and we will do it. There's other side which is much more like you know, and mainly the customer side. Right, they should be like they want to see something to pay you, right, yeah, so for me, in a marketplace, if you take the supply and the demand, I feel like your supply should be easier to get. If your supply is also tough to get, then it's a very tough thing to crack that marketplace. 

0:23:30 - Mehmet
Exactly, exactly. You know I like this because the other day I will not mention names or anything. So someone come to me with an idea of a marketplace and you know he was very excited explaining to me and then I said, okay, hold on one second. I said I think you're going to find your customers easy, but how are we going to find the suppliers? 

0:23:53 - Tarun
The other side of the marketplace. 

0:23:55 - Mehmet
And then for one second he said, yeah, you're right. Like I never thought about it this way. I said look, like you know, technology today allows you to spawn out a marketplace. You don't even to throw too much money. You know to have even an MVP of a marketplace. But if you don't show you know your customers something which is ready for them to try and access, like, you'll end up by doing nothing. Actually, you'll be just wasting your time. So I said you know, but very, very accurate point, and this is great advice Like find the supplier part, you know, easy. If it's easy, that will make the life much easier. So but how do you, for example, you know from your case you convince, like different stakeholders to come up to your platform. Like what do you, what do you? 

0:24:43 - Tarun
saw something that works really good, I mean generally in supply, right. Like when you build a business, what I observed is like you're not building something out of nothing. Like you know, there are certain practices that are already there. You're trying to fine tune it and make it better experience for customers, right? So maybe the customer has a particular problem, then the solutions are there, but the solutions are kind of dispersed between different places, right. So it becomes too big, like you know, too much, for the customer to deal with all those things. You're trying to unify those different aspects, right? 

So, yeah, so for me, I think, convincing, like you know, at least on the supply side. So I feel like your supply already exists. Your supply is already dealing with certain things, right. You just trying to find the right fit for you In terms of customers. Definitely, you need to iterate a lot on finding your ideal customers, right. You'll find some traction in the beginning, but they may not really be the right ones, right. They may not be the ones that are going to give you a lot of demand, or they may not be the ones that will continue to stay with you, right? So on the customer side, it's a continuous iteration and figuring it out, like you know who are the right ones. But like I said on the supply, I think your supply should already be existing, doing different things, and they should be willing to come to you also pretty easily, without any struggle. 

0:26:03 - Mehmet
Yeah, great. Now, sarun, I want to go back to the space where you are in today, which is mainly in the logistics, right. So what future trends are you seeing and how do you anticipate? You know, with the past runner, to get on the hype of these future trends, and you know the evolving demands. 

0:26:26 - Tarun
Yeah, so what we observed is basically, to be honest, we didn't even know this when we started, right, what we observed is, like, post, uber, the lot of marketplaces are, like you know, basically this whole IC concept independent contractors right, that has been replicated in different sectors right. And same thing happened with logistics. And what we found is the last mile, the small parcel, anything like small boxes, right, with dough dash. It started with the food industry but they all kind of ventured into like, okay, what can fit into a car? Right, anything that can fit into a car which doesn't need any special labor, intense or anything like that, or doesn't need any insurance, or you know, it's kind of straightforward and you take a package and you put it in your box and you go and deliver. Right, I think that is pretty much commoditized and the biggest players are already occupied most of the market, right. So we kind of call it like a small parcel. 

Small parcel in the last month, right, where we find the opportunity and this is something in US there is competition, and especially in LATAM, is where, like, you know where partner is, you know we have one of the first to enter that space. Right, it's a big and bulky side, what is big and bulky, like anything that cannot be put in a box right? Think of a pipes, or refrigerators or, like you know, condensers units right, which are very heavy, which are construction related, or industrial suppliers right Now, with user behavior even, they also want to move these things faster and more efficiently, right. So I think that's the marketplace. That is the lot of opportunity and lot of potential for disruption, because, still driven by very traditional logistics where they hire their own driver, they have their own vehicles right, and everything is done on a piece of paper. So there's a lot of scope of technology based disruption on that front, but it's a very uphill task because moving those material in faster and efficiently is not straightforward. 

0:28:33 - Mehmet
So what do you anticipate to be able to help on that part I? 

0:28:36 - Tarun
mean. So that's where we are focusing on, that's where we believe we have found some of the secret sauce that we need to marinate more and more, I guess. But yeah, we are heading there and we see a lot of initial traction, especially in Latin. In Mexico, we have grown like 10X in last one year, wow, and I think the difference is we see a trend of users. We can see how our next 10X growth will look like, what we need to do for that. 

0:29:11 - Mehmet
Great Any plans for further expansion on global level. 

0:29:17 - Tarun
Yeah, it's interesting, though we are in last mile. Today we have operations in US and Mexico, and Mexico is where we have the higher growth right now. So we want to just continue with US, as we are, with slower expansion plans but hyper-focusing on Mexico and Latin. Maybe in 2024, we want to replicate some of this in other Latin countries. 

0:29:43 - Mehmet
That's great. I'm good to know. Usually, I try to see if I missed anything when discussing with you, tarun. Is there any point that I should have touched, based upon anything you want to share? 

0:30:01 - Tarun
No, I think this has been really great conversation. I think you kind of asked those right questions that people need to hear more and more. That's what I can say Personally. I haven't done it too. The thing is, I feel like when you start getting into this startup, you need to come with a little bit ready to forget everything you know. You should be like oh, I don't know anything, I need to know. 

You need to have that mindset you need to be like oh, I know it, it becomes extremely tough. You're always fighting the battle against what you know and what the market is telling you. Sometimes you need to become extremely like eagoless, which is tough because you need to go with your gut. There are a lot of factors there, so it's not an easy mix to find, but if you are there, if you keep going at it, you will find. That's what I believe. It takes time, but you will find. 

0:31:02 - Mehmet
Great, where the audience can find more about you and about your company. 

0:31:10 - Tarun
Yeah, I mean you guys can connect me in LinkedIn. You can go to partnercom. We tend to put a lot of blog posts in LinkedIn too. That's the quickest way to reach out. 

0:31:24 - Mehmet
Great. I'll make sure that I will put the links in the show notes of the episode, tarun. Well, I really also enjoyed the conversation. It was, I think, very authentic, from the heart. I like the way where you try to explain all the challenges and the journey that you had, which is very inspiring, I'm sure, a lot of, especially first time founders, which, honestly, I try to focus my episodes to be targeting them in different topics, whether it's like entrepreneurship, product management, technology perspective and so on. So, basically, a lot of information you shared with us today. 

Thank you very much, tarun, for your time, and usually this is how I end my episode for first time, if you're tuning in. Thank you very much for passing by. I hope you become a loyal listener or viewer and, if you know, you are one of our loyal also followers. Thank you very much for all your support and all your comments that you keep sending to me and if you are interested also to be on the show, like Tarun was today, don't be shy, reach out and we can make the arrangement. And again, thank you for tuning in and see you again in a next episode. Thank you, bye, bye. 

Transcribed by https://podium.page