As part of our endeavour to share some of the unique and compelling startup stories from the ecosystem, we spoke to Whistle Drive to understand more about their vision and the way forward.
Whistledrive aims at transporting a million people a day to work and places through technology-driven, efficient and safe transportation.
The vision of the startup is to be India’s leader in the transportation industry and enable hassle-free private car ownership and employee transportation using technology.
Whistledrive Founding Team:
Rakesh Munnanooru is the sole founder and CEO of WhistleDrive. He is from Karimnagar, Telangana.
He is a CSE graduate from Shiv Nadar University Noida, class of 2015. While he was in college he founded BrandDunia which does the Branding works for corporate companies and production houses. It was a massive success. They also worked for movie promotions. ‘Sahasam’ was one to name.
After a while, he had to leave BrandDunia and later he started InstaBuy which is a tier-2 tier-3 city online shopping site. That was also a huge hit and since Amazon or any other big players doesn’t have strong footprints in tier-2 and tier-3 cities, it was a very happening business. Rakesh made huge business margins there but had to leave it to continue his graduation.
After his college, he returned back to Karimnagar and did web-development freelancing for several businesses and online tutoring for a few months while he was simultaneously preparing for his GRE for Masters. He scored 112 in toefl just to prove everybody that he can get admission anywhere but he was eagerly waiting to startup and his Entrepreneurship pursuit.
Then WhistleDrive ideation happened in 2015.
What is the product/service you provide, how the product works? What are your USP and innovation? Also, mention if you pivoted from the initial product? If yes, when and how did you decide to pivot?
WhistleDrive is a transportation technology company that offers an End to End AI-powered Employee Transportation Solution for corporates and On-Demand Drivers for car owners.
We started Driver On Demand and later understood that our software can also solve the inefficiencies in Employee Transportation and since the DNA of Driver On Demand and Employee Transportation is just the same but the scale of operating is different, we quickly boarded a client and did a pilot with them. That was a huge hit and we then on-boarded big-time clients like ADP, Invesco and a lot of others.
What’s your competitive advantage and why can’t it be copied?
Our first competitive advantage is that we are into both fleet and software. We believe that transportation solution should be managed by a single team/ company to understand and improve efficiency. And we are successfully moving 12000+ employees on our fleet.
Competitive advantage:
We provide Fleet+ software+ on ground logistics support as a solution. We are proud to say that we are able to scale up in both the wings. And generally, there are companies who either provide fleet or software or On Ground logistic support, but we give the whole of it as a single solution.
Services:
We call it WhistleFleet (4 and 7 Seaters), WhistleShuttle (Wingers and mini-buses), Whistle360°(And End to End solution from Fleet to software to On-ground logistic support) and we also give consultation for corporates who need expert suggestions in employee transportation, both for tech, fleet and more.[Text Wrapping Break]All this is powered by WhistleTech, the technology which is enabling and channelising the entire transportation process with ease in such a huge scale.
Our software has been powered by AI and blockchain. Currently, all the reports in our dashboard are deep insightful descriptive analytics and we are also working on predictive analytics which can predict weather forecast, traffic forecast and more. And with the help of Blockchain, all the data will remain highly encrypted and manipulation of data is almost nullified.
Hybrid Fleet Model: We currently have 800+ fleet in which few are WhistleDrive owned and the rest are cab partner WhistleDrive software will club partnered cabs and own cabs while routing the cabs and ensure cost cuttings for clients and improve efficiency by backing up the existing fleet.
What challenges/obstacles did you face in your journey so far?
Corporations are increasingly looking for automated data-driven solutions to ease the process of transportation and also bring a significant improvement in operational efficiency and overall cost minimization. The major challenge is to address inefficiencies in the current traditional model and help transition the industry to adopt a data-driven process. Our integrated cabs + software model helps clients adopt the transition with much ease. Cab partners love the ease of accessing all their historic trip and payment data right on their mobile application. This also helps in building loyalty owing to transparency.
How did you go about researching and validating the idea? Take us through the journey of ideation, designing, prototyping your initial thought.
In 2015, location-based services were taking over the market and I really wanted to be part of the wave and solve a critical problem with real-time location sharing technology. From personal experience and a bit of on field research, I quickly realised that there is a considerable market for Driver on Demand service for car owners.
We did a dry run for about 8 months. It took a while for us to understand the market expectations and communicate with our partner drivers efficiently. We realized the need for a strong structure and adopted a process driven approach which helped us grow by 5x in 3 months. We realized the same technology can be applied for corporate employee transportation and piloted with a B2B client and It was a massive success. We understood that the DNA of B2C and B2B business is the same but it’s just the scale that’s different and started approaching new clients.
We scaled significantly and landed 4 huge volume clients by February and raised Series-A funding of Rs.5 Crore from Colosseum Group in April 2018. Since then we have achieved phenomenal growth in Hyderabad and also expanded to Bangalore and Chennai. As of today, we have a fleet size of 800+ Vehicles across 3 cities and transport 12,000+ employees every day through our cabs and bus shuttles.
How did you come up with the name, tagline and logo for your Startup?
Sometimes there are interesting stories around coming up with names and we can’t miss it.
Rakesh loves watching TV series and movies. Out of a TV series called ‘Suits’ where Harvey Specter calls out a cab with just a Whistle. And since we started as a Driver On Demand and Valet parking, we added drive to Whistle.
The tagline was ‘Hire a driver Anytime, Anywhere’ but after evolving as an Employee Transportation company, we changed our tagline to ‘Think. Whistle. Move.’ And since we are fascinated by location tracking, we used the location icon with steering in it.
Please explain the business and revenue model.
We provide an end to end service for employee transportation to corporates in packages and also individually. End to end here means we render them Software, Fleet and Manpower for employee transportation need to enterprises. These services are provided whole as a package or individually like only fleet or only software to the required prospects. We make money by providing these services and how we ensure the better margins is we don’t involve third-party vendors for vehicle needs. We source vehicles directly from the owners which give us more control and margin for all the stakeholders involved in the business.
And we have a Hybrid fleet model. WhistleDrive owns 125+ fleet and the rest of the fleet are partnered. WhistleDrive software will club partnered cabs and own cabs while routing the cabs and ensure cost cuttings for clients and improve efficiency by backing up the existing fleet.
How and where did you launch your startup?
We got a little space to use in an IT company in Hyderabad. We started working from there.
And we started driver on demand with a set of on-demand drivers, we were only 3 people, handling the driver hiring, booking engagement and payments, marketing and everything. Like any startup, we had a great feel and strong enthusiasm. Then moved to a small 6*6 cubical office space.
We’ve quickly built the website, booking portal & app and started social media chat, Messenger/ Whatsapp bookings and increased our reach.
We’ve received a tremendous response from our customers for the quality service and the word of mouth passed on to get more customers.
Digital platforms have helped us a lot tap a huge number of audiences in one go. And since the traffic is a pain for anyone in the city, a few want to go out of the station with family and for late night parties, we are active 24*7.
Meanwhile, we also found B2B2C clients like Zoom and Revv. And it took off from then.
Our Valet parking is also a good hit and now we are doing individual and corporate valet parking services.
Within no span, we realised the scope in Employee Transportation and started a pilot.
Later in October 2017, we have stepped into WhistleDrive dedicated open office space in the Heart of the Kondapur, Right opposite to Google.
There are a lot of things that favoured us,
All we have is a core young team who is hungry to learn and grow.
There is an always increasing demand in the market, either for Driver On Demand or Valet parking or Employee Transportation.
When it comes to the channels we used, we left nothing unturned. We used offline to reach people through campaigns in communities, pubs, malls and we were also available for bookings on calls and chat.
We also used online platforms equally and got traction.
What worked to attract and retain customers/clients?
The true hack we believe in is Customer Obsession. We stand on it right from our values.
We understood that there is a pain point either in Employee Transportation or Driver on Demand. We address them with our services with the help of technology.
And especially in B2B, of course, onboarding the first 10 customers is pure bliss. We are currently serving 28 clients in 3 different cities within one and a half years. That has all come organically.
And our advantage is, we are on both the ends. Since we have the fleet and expert team managing the overall flow of fleet, we are also well equipped with the technology and we understand the challenges from the client side as well since we handle the whole transportation for clients, that became easy for our team to connect the dots.
In our B2C business, We are serving more than 15000 active customers in Hyderabad with 150+ rides every day. All we are doing is, we are available for customers on all the possible platforms
Technology has made it easy for all the product and service companies today. And personalisation and customer delight will make bring business for organically. Our B2C model is a live example. We also tied up with self-driving car companies like Zoom Cars and Revv which lead to scale up mutually.
What are your expansion plans/breakeven projections?
Raised a Series-A fund of Rs. 5Cr (Approx $750K )from a Chicago based Investment firm in early Q2 2018. It was the time when we signed up with a few clients in Employee Transportation and serving 5000+ customers in B2C. The funding got at the right time when we started working on the technology and operations to scale up. Since we can connect the dots looking backwards, we raised the funding and now we are looking for a series-B round of funding with the expectation to raise in between $5-10M.
What advice would you give to someone starting out, particularly to entrepreneurs?
I always work on a tag line ‘add value to get value’. Don’t focus primarily on money or investments but keep your focus on creating a sustainable venture & value creation. I believe, rest things will automatically set with time. Also, if you are starting up a venture, feel free to reach out to us. You will find us a great partner or mentor to you with innovative means.
Perseverance: The one who is doing the same would remain the same. Someone has to be just a little more conscious about what and how they do, that will make the difference.
Patience: Great things take time. Any product is not built fortnight. Believe in the process. And never judge the progress very quickly.
Product/ Service: Your product/ service should address some problems or pain points and should have enough market size for you to tap.
Customer Obsession: If your customer is delighted, there is nothing else like it. You care your customers and it will take care of the rest and
Be ready to fail (big): Failing isn’t bad. If you are not ready to fail, You are not ready for startup.
BrilliantRead is committed to bringing stories from the startup ecosystem, Stories that reshape our perspective, add value to our community and be a constant source of motivation not just for our community but also for the whole ecosystem of entrepreneurs and aspiring individuals.
Note: If you have a similar story to share with our audience and would like to be featured on our online magazine, then please write to us at [email protected], we will review your story and extend an invitation to feature if it is worth publishing.
