Industry: Trucking/ Transportation/ Machine Learning
Founding Student Name(s): Hidayat Hamidov (MBA ‘23), Adithya Krishnakumar (SEAS)
Brief Description of Solution: LogTrack is for truck operators and fleet owners who struggle to find favorable rates and manage operations across various trucking platforms. LogTrack aggregates information from multiple trucking marketplaces and logistics platforms, identifies optimal prices, sends booking emails, and communicates with customers and drivers. Think of LogTrack as a personal AI-powered trucking assistant.
Funding Dollars: Pre-Seed Round
What led you to launch this venture? I have over 10 years of experience in Logistics and Supply Chain Management. I have consistently engaged with various stakeholders in the industry to understand their pain points, as I am well aware that the industry can be quite stressful due to its conservative nature and limited digitalization. Those who own or operate trucks often suffer from financial and productivity losses due to the decentralized nature of their operations. On average, they hire one employee for every three trucks to manage operations across different verticals. While listening to different entrepreneurs with similar pain points, I asked myself: can we bring the concepts of automation and AI together and create an AI-powered Copilot for truck owners, allowing them to achieve a better work-life balance?
What has been your biggest accomplishment so far with venture? One of our three use cases is integration with trucking marketplaces. Receiving the green light for API integration from some of the largest trucking marketplaces in the USA is a significant achievement in a short time frame, as it will enable us to launch product’s beta version and find product-market fit much faster.
What has been the most significant challenge you’ve faced in creating your company and how did you solve it? Convincing integration partners can be challenging, as AI Copilot is a relatively new concept for many companies. We succeeded in persuading our stakeholders by showcasing the prototype, sharing the demo video, and assuring them of data security. Our professional and academic backgrounds also played a crucial role in securing partnerships with them.
How has your MBA program helped you further this startup venture? The Columbia MBA has been a game-changer, not only in acquainting me with entrepreneurship and technology-related knowledge but also in understanding the Venture Capital ecosystem and enhancing my operations and management knowledge and skills. Furthermore, networking and being surrounded by some of the smartest people, and receiving their feedback and thoughts, transformed my entrepreneurial skills and convinced me to take bold steps.
What founder or entrepreneur inspired you to start your own entrepreneurial journey? How did he or she prove motivational to you? Steve Jobs: His persistence, motivation, and passion for innovation inspired me. Despite all his failures, he never deviated from his focus and eventually built one of the biggest companies.
Which MBA class has been most valuable in building your startup and what was the biggest lesson you gained from it? Launch Your Startup – This course provides a playbook on how to build and run a startup, and I can always refer to the course material, which covers nearly everything I need.
What professor made a significant contribution to your plans and why? Jack McGourty – He has always been there to offer invaluable assistance, a second perspective, and guidance whenever I needed it.
How has your local startup ecosystem contributed to your venture’s development and success? New York City is a fertile environment for meeting investors and amazing founders. Moreover, the Port of New Jersey/New York is one of the largest and strategically located ports in the nation, making New York home to thousands of trucking businesses, which simplifies our customer discovery process.
What is your long-term goal with your startup? We aim to transform the industry by creating an AI-powered assistant for every truck owner.
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