Tell me your vision for PartRunner,
and give me a little bit of background about PartRunner.
Sure.
So maybe I'll give you a background of PartRunner
that will make it easy to understand the vision aspect,
right?
Yes, absolutely.
Like I said, PartRunner is a marketplace
for last-minute logistics.
So you can think of an Uber.
We work with enterprise companies
like Amazon, Walmart, 7 and 11th of the world.
We work with them in moving their last mile, middle mile
kind of logistics.
The one thing where we differentiate ourselves
from a competition is the big and bulky aspect, right?
So when we say big and bulky, you
can consider that palletized products or something
which is very heavy.
You might need a helper or something
that is non-uniform like the pipes.
They're bigger in length, right?
So getting the specialty vehicles, right?
So the challenge in this sector is a very unorganized sector.
In this digital world, AI world, the logistics are still very,
very, I wouldn't say there's lack of innovation,
but still it's driven by people.
The people move this and majority of people
who are in this business, other than the customer side,
are all big enterprise and all.
But on the supply side, you deal with a lot of fleet operators,
small businesses, drivers, owner operators, right?
Yes.
So yeah, so the challenge and the vision for me
is really how can we build a tech logistics company, right?
Where we kind of provide end-to-end digital solutions
for both sides of the marketplace.
Like generally, the enterprise customers,
they just care about getting it done,
having 100% delivery rates, like trackability, things like that.
But I feel on the supply side, for the fleet operators,
partner platform could add a lot of value.
It could help them grow their businesses,
help them operate much more efficiently,
and also come up with more business solutions that
could help them grow beyond just doing the logistics.
So with this, and I'm going to ask these questions
for more understanding.
So you move bigger items, correct?
And you work with Amazon, 7-Eleven, things like that.
And you also work with the fleet operators,
which are drivers to make these things happen.
And with that, you're saying that the challenge
with the companies that you work with is they don't have
the operations to move the larger items.
And so that's where you come in at?
Yes, yes, that's right.
Thing is, were they moving material
before partner was there?
Answer was yes.
But were they doing it efficiently
as they're doing it today?
The answer is no.
That's where partner comes in.
If we are not there, they have to work with 10
of the small businesses trying to figure out, hey,
are you available?
Are you available?
But with us, we kind of take the role and responsibility of,
hey, just tell us your needs.
We make sure we get your stuff done.
Nice.
Very different, very different.
How many is on your team?
Are you a one-man show?
So the thing is, we started in 2018.
2018 has been six years.
As part of this journey, we also expanded operations
to Mexico in 2021.
End of 2020, 2021.
So currently, we have a lot of traction in Mexico.
It's one of the fastest growing markets for us.
So in terms of team size, US, Mexico,
and we have some tech team in India consulting teams.
So we are around 30 to 35 as a team space.
We are three co-founders.
I mainly oversee the product and technology side.
Nice.
So how did you get started?
Of course, you knew the need.
So to be honest, when we started,
it wasn't like we wanted to do work with Amazon
and none of this, right?
Yeah.
It was a very simple idea.
It was like, OK, how can we move some of the household items,
like fridge, refrigerator, AC, right?
Yeah.
We see a lot of people are moving food and everything
the same day, right?
Not the same day, within a couple of hours, right?
So it was all kind of conceptualized around that.
How can we also get household appliances same day
or within a few hours, like an on-demand?
But then as we started scratching,
we made some pivots here and there.
But this is where we found the true need for the services
they're providing.
It's really with enterprise companies
and moving their routes daily.
So is a lot of your big items, are they
because you're pretty much in locations that
are specific to delivering, is it most of your moving
of these items same day or within that?
Yeah.
OK.
So we have two types of services,
but the majority is way to move routes.
We kind of call it routes.
We don't do deliveries.
We don't do hot shots, things like that.
So the specialty of partner compared
to many solutions that are out there
is that our ability to do routes and second thing
is those routes, you can make those changes.
You can be like, hey, I'm going to cancel the route.
Cancelling one stop is very different from canceling a route.
Or you could be like, hey, I need a different vehicle
for the whole route.
So having that availability in terms
of supply for that long period of time for the days
and ability to make those same day changes as needed,
I think that's what differentiates us a lot.
With your experience and where you are right now,
how do you think leaders can lean
into funding their vision?
What did it take for you guys to actually get this
off the ground and then not even that,
to be where you are right now from here to Mexico
and moving forward?
Tell me more about how do you think
leaders can lean into funding their vision from your examples.
Yeah, I think funding is the most underrated part
of the whole entrepreneurship journey, I feel.
Like, you know, there are many ways to do a business, right?
Like small businesses is very different.
It's more about you having initial capital
or your ability to take some loan or risk, that part.
And then you run into like Silicon Valley businesses
or the tech businesses, which are more about having
the bigger vision and your ability to sell the world
and raise initial money to take baby steps towards that.
But what I kind of learned is the whole funding process
or fundraising is very similar to sales.
It's really similar to sales.
In sales, you are selling to a customer.
Here, you are trying to sell it to an investor.
You are trying to convince with a very different agenda,
motives, right, motivation aspects.
But yeah, you need to really like, you need to take time.
You need to separate a good chunk of time into that
and iterate daily.
You get feedback, you need to update your decks.
You need to update information.
And keep people posted about your progress.
Everyone wants to invest into a story at this stage.
We are in the very early stages.
People are investing into you, your discipline,
your ability to communicate, your understanding
of the problem, sector.
Like it's really belief, belief in nothing else, right?
Yeah.
Because there are a lot of great ideas.
There's really people who make it execute.
Like, will this person just quit in a year?
Is he just going to do a haywire?
Like how serious is he?
Like things like that, right?
Just having the continuous thing going, right?
Yeah.
I think that is very critical to fund raising.
And it never ends.
Like at least in the tech space,
it gets bigger and bigger.
And like every step, everything you did previously,
you will learn more.
Now that you're raising more capital.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.