The world is changing fast, and the changes only seem to accelerate as the days go by. Yet some constants remain – things we have come to rely upon, even if we don’t realize it. 

One of those things is the Transportation industry. Most of the things we buy and consume are delivered by a heavy truck. But did you know how much freight is shipped by truck yearly? 

Some quick stats: 

• Manitoba is 3% of the Canadian population, while the Manitoba trucking industry represents 5.1% of the Canadian industry. 
• Over ten million trucks cross the Canadian/US border annually.
• 90% of consumer goods and foodstuffs are shipped by truck.
• 2/3 of trade with the US is shipped by truck. That’s more than rail, sea, and air combined.
• The trucking industry directly & indirectly employs 4.6 of Manitoba’s labour force.
• A typical tractor/trailer raises about $45,000 in federal & provincial taxes and fees.

(source)

North Forge recently sat down with Harmanpreet (Harman) Arora and Dikshant Dev Minhas of FleetHunt, A Manitoba Startup and transportation telematics provider based in Winnipeg, to discuss their solutions for telematics, electronic logging devices (ELD) , dash cams, and more.

Fleethunt started as a global positioning system (GPS) provider for the trucking industry while gradually expanding their services to include fleet management services, dash cameras, and more recently, ELD. They currently operate in Canada, Ghana, India, and the Philippines working with companies of all sizes. Their mission is to continually work with their customers to ease the management of their fleets and integrate with technology that helps to drive productivity and lower operating costs.  

 

Read on to learn more!  

North Forge (NF): How did you initially come up with the idea for FleetHunt?

Harman Arora: Since 2016, I’ve had an IT management company based in Winnipeg, and I wanted something that could go global. But with that company, I found it difficult to expand to that extent, leading me to this idea. There are many people here in the East Indian community involved in the transportation industry, so I wanted to talk with them about the idea. So when I was doing some research, I spoke with some truck operators and asked, ‘if we go into this, what are the chances of growth?’ We got a good response, so we started working on it. And since then, we’ve realized how great the need is. Many customers I know began with two trucks and have expanded up to 12 trucks within a year, so there’s a lot of growth. Additionally, there is a mandate that all heavy truck fleets implement and use ELD, which has been in place since January 1 of this year. 

ELD stands for Electronic Logging Devices, and all drivers must manage their logs electronically. Our solution uses hardware and our proprietary software to update the driving logs. These regulations are in place mainly to reduce accidents so the driver can rest properly. 

ELD is required for heavy trucks only because there are some exemptions. For example, you’re exempt if you’re driving within the province. But on long-haul trips (across provincial borders, for example), you must use an ELD for the logs.

NF: What were the goals for your app and your company?

Harman Arora: I initially wanted something I could go global with immediately. But things change. When things change, you change your plans as well. So we now plan to expand our SaaS model globally but also focus on B2C in North America. 

NF: How does your app work? 

Harman Arora: We use GSM (Global System for Mobile communication)  based hardware.e implement protocols to control how the device will communicate with our software and then integrate it with the hardware devices. The data is transmitted to our cloud infrastructure, and we share that data with our app and web platform. 

NF: Please tell us about your recent pivot and why you decided to go in your chosen direction.

Dikshant Dev Minhas: there have always been pivots – they happen all the time. We’ve changed things because we are small and have to grow. We had a lot of questions in the past about why we don’t specify our customer base and focus only on large ticket-size companies and then diversify because we have many different product offerings. Others have suggested that we charge per specific product feature, but we didn’t do that. We thought it would be best to help as many customers as possible with a small team and focus on driving those revenues. And also, as Harman said, this industry is growing fast, and we have many customers who have grown from two trucks to 15 or 20 trucks in one year. So, we pivoted from a focused strategy to an all-in approach to help any customer with a need. Many of our competitors will only work with fleets with more than five trucks. But I think in the long term, when the global telematics industry’s yearly growth is 21%, and trucking is still the backbone of the North American economy, differentiating with that perspective would be wrong. I would say we are focused on everybody; we want to help everyone we can help.  Many of our competitors only want to focus on the large fleets, but we want to work with the smaller ones and help them grow. 

NF: How did you initially find out about the North Forge Founders Program?

Dikshant Dev Minhas: I was in university at the University of Manitoba, and I met Harman and joined the startup. The university suggested that I reach out to North Forge because they have an incubator program, and they help raise funding. We had already considered securing more funding to grow our team. At that point, I emailed Joelle, and since then, we have been in regular contact with North Forge about our progress. And once we qualified, we got into the program.

NF: What did you wish you had known before joining the Founders Program?

Dikshant Dev Minhas: I wish we had known about the Founders Program a bit earlier. And before applying, we could have better organized our books because that would have initially made things easier for us. 

Harman Arora: When we started working on raising funds, they asked if we had a data room, and we had no experience in raising money, and we didn’t realize this would be important. They helped us to understand why that was important and helped us prepare to raise more funds in the future – and we’re always looking for more help with this. We know how to start and build a business and develop and use technology, but there was a lot we didn’t understand about raising additional funds. 

NF: How have you benefited from the North Forge mentors and Entrepreneurs-in-Residence (EIRs)? 

Dikshant Dev Minhas: We’ve had a few calls with the EIRs. They were helpful in understanding where the gaps are in our pitch deck and what we should focus on in the future. We discussed pricing and if we should charge more, as we have many different product offerings. It has been beneficial to have that outside view and perspective. 

NF: Did you have an unexpected takeaway from being in the program? 

Dikshant Dev Minhas: After talking with the EIRs, we could charge more for our different product offerings. In a meeting, one of the EIRs said, ‘you are offering so many products with your ELD, dashcam, and asset tracking – why don’t you charge by fleet size or by the different products and services in your program?’ And it was helpful to understand that – we hadn’t thought about it that way before. We currently want to offer the best service to onboard as many clients as possible. And then, we can focus on that strategy later once we grow some more in the three provinces we’re working in now (MB, AB, and BC). 

NF: What do you most look forward to while participating in the Founders Program?

Dikshant Dev Minhas: It’s been a learning curve for us. It was like another university experience for me. We attended many sessions and learned to raise money, where not to raise money, what are good and bad rates of interest – so many helpful things. We learned about how the other startups are doing. There’s a lot of learning, especially during sessions where other startups come and speak about what they’re doing. And it’s been constructive for all of us. We get a lot of feedback on what we have done and what we need to do, and we also help others. We try to support them on things we’ve learned or uncovered in seeking funding. It’s been a symbiotic relationship with other startups in this program. And we would love to be a part of this community in the long term. 

NF: Do you have any tips for other Founders who want to apply to the Founders Program? 

Harman Arora: In our experience, one of the first things to do is organize your books and accounting. 

Dikshant Dev Minhas: It’s better to do this because then you can determine your ratios, understand where you’re at, and if your receivables are growing because people aren’t paying you. It’s vital to know that. I would also say don’t be scared to ask for help and use all the available resources. 

Harman Arora: Yes – ask for help. Many grants are available, and you should apply for as many as possible to reduce the r&d cost. Also, start working with an incubator like North Forge as soon as possible.   

NF: What’s on the Horizon for Fleethunt in 2023 and beyond?

Harman Arora: We want to expand into the US market and continue to grow in Canada. We are in the process of hiring in Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver. I will be talking with a US reseller who has a fuel invoicing solution for three of the cities we’ve picked in common. We’re also working on a solution for our dashcam. We’ve found that there are very few dashcams that work well. We have access to a company based in the US with a great solution, and we believe they’re the right partner to help us provide and offer our own hardware to our customers. We will have a network in India because we’ve done a pilot in India to build the infrastructure, and we know we can handle millions of devices. Once we have the dashcam, we will start expanding further into India. Next year, we will expand our SaaS model to a global scale. We’re very focused on growing our revenue, and once we’ve crossed our revenue target, we want to help others. We could become an angel investor from Manitoba or even start our fund to help other Startups. We’re building our network in Asia, North America, and Africa, and we know what startups need. We want to help others because we know what it’s like to struggle when you start. And Manitoba has been very supportive of us – we’re so grateful!

Next Steps:

If you’d like to know more about FleetHunt and their robust solutions for Fleet Tracking, Harman and Dikshant Dev would welcome any inquiries by email: 

• Harmanpreet (Harman) Arora, Founder and CEO: harman@fleethunt.com
• Dikshant Dev Minhas, VP Operations: dev@fleethunt.com

Do you have a business idea that you’d like to discuss? Tell us about your vision, and let’s meet to chat about it!