Interview with Alvin Ea, Co-Founder & CEO of Haulio

Welcome to ChainTech, the show and podcast focusing on the latest trends in supply chain, procurement, and logistics technology. My name is Max Henry from the Global Supply Chain Council, and together with my co-host and special guest, we explore the personalities, startups, innovators, and industry players driving disruption in supply chain. From early stage to unicorns, And from cutting-edge technology to the people using it to help drive more innovative, agile, and resilient supply chains around the world. This is ChainTech. Welcome to the ChainTech Show, the first podcast focusing on all things supply chain, logistics, and procurement technology. My name is Max Henry. I'm the founder and the executive director of the Global Supply Chain Council. The show is again produced by the Global Supply Chain Council in partnership with Chain.net and ChainTech. So we're excited to have our guest today. I'm very pleased to, you know, welcome Alvin Yee, who is the co-founder of Holo, joining us. And but also I'm joined by my co-hosts, Andy McKeown and Hooray Vrong, who are also going to introduce themselves. Hi, Andy. Hi, Hooray.

Hi Max, thanks very much for having us on today. Very much looking forward to talking with Alvin. You know, my name is Andy McKeown. I've been in the industry for logistics industry for over 20 years now, and I'm the co-founder and CEO of Logchain.

Hi Max, thanks for having me today as well. I'm working at QNAGOR as logistics analyst and also worked at Bosch in Vietnam before. So I'm quite interested in the supply chain industry and enjoy the panel today.

Thanks again for joining us for this discussion around, you know, logistics, logtech technology, and with a focus again on what's happening in Asia. So let me start with you, Alvin. You know, it's great to have you here for, you know, this episode. We know that you founded Rollio quite recently and you have also a very interesting background in the industry. Could you share with us, you know, where you come from, and what actually made you and motivated you to start this company, Holio.

Thanks. Once again, thank you so much for having me. It's a great privilege and honor. Max, Andy, and Hugh, thanks for having me here. Good afternoon, guys. My name is Alvin, co-founder and CEO of Holio. The interesting thing about myself, I was a trucker when I was 25 years old. I'm actually a second-generation business leader. that I started container trucking, you know, back when I was 25 years old. I grew a very traditional company from 1 truck to 15 trucks in 3 years, and I worked for my father essentially. But 5 years into doing that, you know, I started and co-founded Haulio. Another very interesting fun fact about Haulio is that it's actually not founded by myself. It's actually co-founded by my original founder, is my partner, who actually is Sebastian, and he's the the Chief Product Officer of Haulio. Haulio, essentially, it's, for lack of a better word, we are like Uber or Grab for container trucks. And our vision is to connect Southeast Asia to the world. Haulio stands for Haulage in Overdrive, and we are basically an aggregator, digital aggregator of container trucks in Southeast Asia. And, you know, we basically today have a network of over 6,000 trucks across Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia. And we are expanding into the rest of Southeast Asia by end of 2025. So that essentially is my background and my history. So I am basically doing Holio to disrupt myself, for lack of a better word.

Okay, so this is interesting. So you, the partner, Benjamin, you know, your partner was basically someone that you knew who had that idea, and he actually came to you with the idea of launching this company, right?

Yes, he did. So the interesting thing was, maybe for all the logisticians out there, in my very humble opinion, it takes a lot, but it takes someone from the inside to actually disrupt yourself. But it is actually almost virtually impossible to do that unknowingly or naturally because it is like telling yourself that whatever you have learned and whatever you have been doing for the past decade or decades for some people here, is wrong. And it takes someone from the outside actually to tell you that you're wrong. And the real funny thing is that when he shared with me the vision of Paul Liu in the very first place, I actually told him that it wouldn't work.

Yeah, this, this is something that gets me really excited because you get people from the industry who are used to doing things in a certain way and they're not ready for change. You've got people from outside the industry who can see that there's some fundamental problems, but they don't have the domain experience. And that's why I always think it's to have a natural balance between the technology and the domain experience. That's the key to Logitech.

Spot on. Spot on, buddy.

So what was the trigger for you to actually accept the offer? Because did you actually leave your family business? Because you were working full-time with that, right? And what actually convinced you to say goodbye to your dad and just say, I'm going to go and set up a company? You know, a new company might disrupt you actually.

Yeah, there are 3 phases to this, right? The first phase essentially is the moment I said no to him, he left my office. I recall very vividly, and I recall very vividly as well for the next 2 weeks, I actually couldn't sleep very well because I was asking myself, what if this guy is actually right? Like, what happens if his vision comes true, right? And because I myself have been looking at technology for a while myself, you know, and I've always been trying to be innovative and disruptive. I told myself this question, if he were to succeed, it made me realize that I have this existential crisis problem because then I wouldn't exist anymore as a trucker, right? So that is the first thing that— so I told myself, let's just, you know, take a look at this. And I mean, anyway, he caught me at the right time because I was a bit angry at my father, working for him for 5 years now, and I was kind of like trying to do something on my own. So he caught me at the perfect time. But the reality is that, guys, I actually only formally left my family business 1 year after Holio started. So that was when I started to fundraise for the first time. And when we have interested VCs asking us, who is the CEO? And I got to ask myself this question now already because I can't be a part-time CEO at Holio for sure. And we were actually incubated by PSA, which is one of the largest port operators in the world. We had some interest from the industry, we're doing quite okay. And I told myself that we could be onto something here, you know, and we actually managed to close a million-dollar seed round. So I decided to tell my father that, you know, give me your blessing. And in fact, the biggest blessing I must say that my father has ever given me till today was a $50,000 check that he put into my company.

Oh, wow.

And till today, it means a lot to me because it's basically telling me that Son, I endorse this, and you can, you know, please, you can go out and try to do this on your own. And that to me means everything.

That's very powerful, very powerful.

Come back to your business. So what's your targeted customer and what's the market that you are aiming to at the moment?

Well, originally when Haulio started, right, our immediate vision, our tagline essentially is together we cargo faster. And still today we believe a lot in community building, we believe a lot in job pooling. We believe a lot in resource sharing. So we actually— first iteration of Holio was basically like a friend's Facebook for truckers. Like, we create an online profile. We are not changing anything because today without Holio— before then, the trucking companies have their little cliques where they share jobs with one another, but they do it via WhatsApp, phone calls, fax machines, you know. So to directly answer your question, Hieu, thereafter when we had our first community of 30 truckers. I recall back in September 2017, which was like 5 months in, we had our very first customer calling us and said that, hey, Alvin, we have an urgent job. And I recall it's a freight forwarder, and he says that you actually have a network of 30 truckers on your platform, which is quite sizable.

It's urgent.

Why don't you do this job for us? So we were like, oh, bingo, we actually have our first revenue. We didn't expect it to come so fast, to be very honest with you guys, right? Because we very— we are very clear about our vision. So our customers today are mostly anyone actually who needs to haul a container. We started out having container truckers themselves as our customers, right? Basically, they book a container on our platform and we actually match it to the trucking company, right? We are actually not an Uber or Grab, right? I've never believed in marketplaces. We are basically a digital haulier, or you want to put it that way, right? We basically take on all the SLAs, the responsibilities. So any shipper, freight forwarder, shipping line, ports that need to haul a container, they are our customers. And right now, our immediate target audience is Southeast Asia. So we believe that every shipment coming in and out of Southeast Asia will be transacted on our platform. And every export coming into Southeast Asia— I'm sorry, every import coming into Southeast Asia is probably an export from China or anywhere else in the world. So that's really what we are targeting, and we want to be able to fulfill containers anytime, anywhere in this region.

Yeah, okay.

As I know that also all the company, kind of DHL, Panabinar, or even the Kunagor, they have the digital technology platform on their website. What, what makes your company different or make your company special to the other customer and they choose you rather than the other 3PLs?

Uh, the question—

yeah, it's a good question, but the funny thing is those 3PLs are actually our customer, so we We are— you think about it, right, guys? We feel that, okay, we are all supply chain experts here. And in my very humble opinion, supply— every supply chain is only as strong as its weakest link. You guys are a chain link, right? And unfortunately, the weakest link that we have identified— and I've been a trucker myself before, I've dealt with drivers for 10 over years now— is actually more often than not the transporters, right? The truckers, the mums and pops, is so fragmented in Southeast Asia. There are millions of truck drivers out there. that are actually either owner-operator. Most of them are not owner-operator. Most of them are made up of very small-sized companies that own maybe 3 or 5 trucks. And these people, they don't have the know-how of technology. They want to transform, but they don't know technology because they are firefighting almost every single day. So our value creation is a platform aggregator, both on the demand side and on the supply side. What we are essentially trying to do is to be a Robin Hood here. We give technology to help these haulier partners of ours to sort of upgrade themselves to be more relevant for the future so that these milestones that DHL's customers want can be then integrated into our solution. So this is one of the, I would say, the, the, the thing that defines who we are, right? And we are essentially trying to be a high-tech trucking operator that I know that the likes of DHL Panalpina also outsources in Southeast Asia.

Yeah, and it's interesting, you know, you talked about this, Alvin, and also something you mentioned earlier about the cliques within the trucking companies, because this is always one of the biggest challenges I've always seen within logistics and supply chain. It's quite often considered a zero-sum game. So every— and this is, and this is that I think is one of the biggest challenges that Logitech businesses have to try and cut through that, because you've got to get trust, and you've got to build an ecosystem, and you've got to bring all the players to the same table, and them not to worry that they're not going to break each other's rice bowls?

That's a great question, Andy. I think, like, you know, first and foremost, the thought process would then be, is this really a zero-sum game? Okay, then we ask ourselves, if we get to the other question, if it's a zero-sum game, let's assume that thesis is correct, right? What we are essentially trying to do, a lot of, at the beginning, most people see Holio as another digital intermediary Another middleman essentially, right? And I always go back to the drawing board with my team. When we— any kind of startup, whether is it in logistics or whatever tech in anywhere in the world, right? We are here to solve a problem. What's the problem statement? What is the pain point that the shippers or forwarders are facing today? They don't have milestones. They don't know where the container is. Whenever you pick up a phone, they will ask, where is my container? And then I can guarantee you, the person that picks up the phone will say that, let me check and get back to you, because they don't have visibility themselves. So how do we bridge that gap? How do we use technology such that we can bridge not just the freight forwarder, the exact person who is receiving the container, directly to the haulier or the truck driver himself? The moment he gets out, it sends a signal to the recipient. And we get all this inspiration from Grab. Right? In Southeast Asia, Grab, you can share a ride, right? And how do you allow the truck driver to share that container ride exactly to the recipient? Yeah, yeah, please.

I'm going to cut you off there because I think the problem is bigger than that. Because if you look at a lot of these large legacy companies, DHL, Panalpina, you know, these people that Huy mentioned, to be honest, I think their approach to technology is outdated. I'm sorry to say it because they're quite often focused on CapEx. To onboard a customer can take months, it can take a lot of time, it takes teams. Whereas technology like Holio, it's actually, it's a lot more agile. And it means like you've covered everything that I quite often talk about, it's the mom-and-pops. These are the people where the technology should be focused on. The MNCs have always been able to afford technology.

Yeah.

It's the mom-and-pops that couldn't. So that's where I think the big difference is for Holio. But this kind of leads me to another bigger and maybe controversial question here. There's a lot of companies out there like Flexport and like Porto now that are blurring the lines between solutions provider and service provider. And, you know, especially in the Logitech industry, it's quite young in a lot of ways.

Yep.

And I think over the next 2 years, people are going to have to decide one way or the other. What do you think? Do you think this is sustainable in the blurring of the lines?

Holio, it's a service provider today. But we also— I think it's the thing with— that's a good question. And yeah, I think the thing to really question ourselves and think about is that must it always be 0 or 1? Why can't it be a hybrid of both? Right. And I think if you look at what Flexport is doing, they're actually Well, not Flexport. I know Convoy is doing that. They were a digital broker. They are now providing their digital technology to traditional brokers. If you see where I'm coming from.

Yeah.

And then, come on, guys. The supply chain, we're in a fantastic industry. I mean, sometimes I hate my father. Why do you do logistics? But now I love him because, guys, supply chain, it's a $9.7 trillion and growing business. So long as you need to move cargo, so long as there's no more Trump, so long as there's less of this, shortage of globalization, so long as goods need to move, so long as trade is flowing, you need us. And it's a big enough space, guys. There's no need for one winner take all. If you look at the freight forwarding space, the biggest guys own like 3%, if I don't recall wrongly.

Yeah.

So to that question, essentially then I would then say that I would see Haulio today, we are a service provider. Tomorrow we could essentially— we are actually licensing some of our technology to some of these trucking companies as well. It's just that in my humble opinion, in Southeast Asia, the enterprises, it's not evolving yet. If you want, like, they are more traditional. You ask them to pay for a software solution, to them, they don't like the concept of paying continuously. They want to pay for IT. Meaning to say that I buy a system, like you tell me 100 grand, okay, I pay, right? But then after that, don't actually ask me to pay anymore. It's a cultural shift. But if you ask the boss today, are they using Netflix? Are they using Spotify? They are. Are they using Microsoft licenses? So they will slowly, gradually shift towards that, in my opinion.

But Alvin, let's be clear here. I mean, you've been raising quite a bit of funding, and again, congrats on your most recent round of funding. But the VCs, the investors which are putting trust and money into your organization, what do they want you to be in 5 years from now? Do they want you to become a technology company or another 3PL? with a kind of a tech flavor to it?

I think VCs— I don't know whether VCs—

Or maybe they don't know. Maybe they have no idea.

I think they don't know what they know, especially in Southeast Asia. To the Southeast Asian VCs who are listening to this, right, I'm sorry to say this, but I think they don't know enough, right? I've always said this. I think Andy can attest to this, right? I've pitched to several of them. Anyone you tell me, like, I don't know, Golden Gate, the famous ones I pitched to, or Vertex, right? Do you know that when I started HoLeo, I have to actually bring a toy model of the Prime Mover? I did a plasticine model of a container and a trailer so that I can show them what my business is about. And you know, when the VC asked me this question, does the container belong to the truck? I was like, okay, fine.

This is what you're dealing with. This is— and you're right, I've had it too, right? I've talked to them all. And look, this is not just— I mean, Alvin, you've already crossed this bridge. I know you have. But I've got a message for all the other founders out there. Sit down with the VCs and they talk about the money. Now, they also talk about the value-add that they'll bring. Just ask them one question. Just one. Give me one example of this value-add that you think you're going to bring to this business. One example. Challenge them on that. The VCs challenge all the startups.

Exactly.

They always say your deck is terrible, your business plan's not very good, you've overvalued yourself. They talk about how wonderful they are. Ask them what is the one, just one, one specific value add that they can bring to the table.

Other than money.

You'll be faced with silence. This is the thing, domain knowledge is important. Honestly, talk to private equity, talk to angel investors, the VCs, they're excited about Logitech, but they've got no experience. yet.

Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about the challenges that you face with your company, Alvin. There must be many, but if you had to pick one or two, what would you say are the biggest challenges you face as you grow and start to expand across the region?

I think there's a few, right? The first one was mindset shift. I've always believed very firmly in our vision of what haulage, not just in Southeast Asia but the world, right? There are actually many Haulios already springing out in China, in Europe, and in the US. So I'm actually proud to, you know, to say that we actually started around the same time. But the biggest challenge is the mental shift, like how do we create enough value to the customers, which is anyone who needs to haul a container. as well as the— most importantly, the hauliers, the truck operators. How do they see us as a platform for growth, as a technology partner, as a financial partner, rather than just simply another middleman? So I think that is my biggest challenge, which, you know, only time will tell. Unfortunately, we are not in the business of fast growth. I recall— I shall not quote that VC, right? I recall somebody telling me this before. Alvin, I give you $750,000. I want you to capture the market share, Singapore market share, 30% of it in the next 18 months. If not, I'll crawl back from you. Do you know what I wanted? I wanted to— I was so angry because he obviously don't understand the business. If I have $750,000 and I can really just transform and win 30% of the market today, anybody can do Holio, guys. Anybody. It's not about the money anymore. You need to understand that the vision is clear. But there's one thing that I always tell my existing investors as well as my future investors is that this is a long-term game. And is every business suitable for venture? Is it venture-backable? You have to ask yourself that question again. Like I said, I'm very clear that this will be the future, but the only thing I cannot control is when will it happen. Will it take 2 years? Will it take 5 years? Will it take 10 years?

But Alvin, that value perception issue that you face, is it Stronger among the end-user shippers, the manufacturers, retailers, or brand owners? Or is it bigger among the 3PLs? Because I feel that as you focus also, because you kind of have a dual sale process, you're targeting both groups. The 3PL might be harder to crack because they might tell you, oh, we have the tools already, we don't need you. But maybe the end-user shippers probably need it more. So what's your thought about that?

I think the 3PLs have another set of problem, guys. They have solutions, they have technology. DHL has probably spent millions of dollars trying to do what they are doing. But the biggest challenge that they face, in my humble opinion, is adoption. It is the same problem that Holio faces as well. How do you make sure that all your vendors— you can always go top-down, guys. I have spoken this many times before. I have spoken to Maersk, I have spoken to Sea-Lion, I have spoken to CMA, I have spoken to DHL. Everybody wants to have their own app. But you go back and you get the question again. Why do you need an app? Do you know if— unless it's a dedicated model where you actually dedicatedly procure a truck that is painted DHL and only does DHL jobs, then yes, the application works. But for haulage, it's different, guys. It's a many-to-many problem. The truck drivers will not give a damn— I'm sorry to say this— whether the job belongs to DHL or does it belong to Kuehne+Nagel or does it belong to SEWA. Because if the driver can do that, they won't be drivers, guys. You've got to understand the root cause of the problem. Guys, if you are listening, whoever that you are listening, listen to me, right? Why are you— it's not about— you can spend millions, but it's about adoption. Are you willing to go down to the ground? Are you willing to do the hard work? And this is what Horlio is doing. I was a trucker, guys. I know exactly what a driver thinks.

Okay.

If you think about it, right, if I use a very simple— just give me 2 minutes to sort of pitch this, right? If you think about it, today I am seeing— okay, let me use the food kitchen or a restaurant, for example. I used to have friends who run F&B, right? For example, they have a new omnichannel today— GrabFood, Deliveroo, Foodpanda, Delivery Hero— wherever you guys are listening from, any part of the world, right? Does the restaurant actually care where it comes from, where the source comes from? Ultimately, he doesn't care. But when the order comes, the app for Deliveroo rings, the app for GrabKitchen rings, right? There are companies today that are already doing an integration service. Such that whether is it coming from Deliveroo or is it coming from Foodpanda, the restaurant just needs to prepare the orders and push it out to them. So if you think about it, right, what my value proposition today is actually, guys, I am helping to uplift the entire vertical of container truckers, the millions of these drivers in Southeast Asia that nobody wants to touch. It's dirty business. You got to get your hands dirty. When Grab started, Anthony Tan himself had to go down to the ground and get drivers to download the stupid app. to teach them how to use the app. These are things that you have to do. Does DHL want to do that? And are they doing it across the entire region using that single app? And you've got to understand, unless it's a dedicated model, DHL can have the reserves and right to get them to use the app.

But the reason why these big companies though, the reason why they all want their own apps is because of fashion. The reason why DHL wants—

it doesn't have—

it's because Schenker's got an app.

It doesn't.

This is the thing, it's the same as blockchain. Everybody sits there and they go in and they see—

It's a sheep mentality.

It is, honestly. It's the same with blockchain. Nobody's still— everyone's trying to understand blockchain still. And a CEO will go into a boardroom and they'll bang their fist on the table going, I've just seen our number one competitor's done a blockchain trial, why don't we have one? And they'll cobble one together, and within 3 months they'll have in all the trade newspapers that they've done a blockchain trial. And if you scratch away from the headlines, what do you see? Buzzwords and no added value.

Hui, what do you think?

Another thing, kind of, we have a broader network of the shippers, also the driver and truck drivers. So they have the fixed contract and have the long-term commitment with those.

Those work. Yeah.

So how can they come back to you and how can you build up the network of the truck drivers? Some kind like that?

No, I think it's a matter of whether it's dedicated or— if it's dedicated contracted model, yes, it works. It makes sense for the driver to just put on a Kun& Nagle uniform and paint a Kun& Nagle truck. But essentially, right, how it really works in the transportation world is that it's never the case. I used to be a trucker. Why would I just put all my eggs in— can Kun& Nagle— okay, if you talk about normal transportation, fine, you probably have a contract logistics that you have daily milk runs. But can you control when the containers are always going to come? Guys, it's out of your control. The shipping line screws up, the ship gets delayed. Can you control that? Can you exactly tell the trucker that you have that 10 containers that I am asking Kununegol to truck? If the vessel delays, what are you going to do? Does the truck driver wait there and wait for Kununegol's job? They don't. They got to find somewhere else. They got to find something else to do. And this essentially Is what haulage is about. Because there are things that is not within your control. It's a scheduled business, it's not an on-demand business. But what if the vessel delays? Once the vessel delays, the job becomes on-demand because suddenly you are planning for 10 containers to be trucked in today, but they just tell you one thing. The vessel just tell you vessel delay. Your customer asks you why is the vessel delayed. Sometimes I get this question, I was like, can you try calling the captain of the ship? How do I know, man? Dude, I can't control the ship, right?

Please tell me.

Shippers and consignees, please listen to us logisticians here. We can't control when the vessel is going to arrive, right? It's not as though you're taking a flight. Yes, flights don't delay that much. You can tell the shipping line, why are they always delayed? Then the shipping line will tell you, oh, the port got no space, or the berths are delayed, and everything always something else, something else is wrong. At the end of the day, who suffers? The guy who is trucking the goddamn container, because you are the one that is trucking it, then you go solve the problem for me. But are you looking deeper into the problem? They will tell you, no, I'm paying you for a service, I don't care, right? The moment the container comes, I want it. But guys, if you have 10 customers who want the same container from the same vessel, who do you pick up for? I ask you this very simple question.

Okay, there is resilient and enough quantities of trucks And containers to adapt with your customer requirements.

So exactly, it's, it's basically an aggregation. It's an economies of scale game. When shipping lines consolidate upstream, they forgot that the downstream has to consolidate as well. And that essentially is what Holo is doing. We are doing a digital aggregation and consolidation of pooling of resources.

Okay, so, uh, Arvind, let me ask you, I mean, you know, Southeast Asia Entire Asia, China, you mentioned it earlier, has a lot of similar platforms. First, do you find a lot of competition? Who are your competitors right now in Asia? Go ahead, name them so we understand who they are.

I want to say no, but that's something that I think VCs usually say, oh, if there's no competitor, then you're not doing it. What I mean, direct competitor, essentially, I feel that in my very humble opinion, our direct competitors are the incumbents, right? Meaning to say, to end this point, it's a zero-sum game. We're basically taking volumes away from the traditional incumbents and onto our platform, right? So, but the same, to answer your question directly, Max, there are a lot of digital trucking platforms and so forth.

Yes, there are.

There's a lot of noise in Indonesia. The largest, Where6, Retasa, Hardoll. Logistly. Vietnam, we have Logivan, Ecotruck. Thailand, we have G-Stix Delivery. Philippines, Interlac. Malaysia, we actually have this company called GrabHaulage, by the way, GrabHaulier. There is LinkHaul. There is basically more or less covered.

So a lot of players. So, but are you saying that none of them are doing what you do exactly?

No, no. Yeah, none of— they are mostly in the middle, guys. So if you think about it, right, there are similarities to our Chinese listener. We have Full Truck Alliance. Essentially, it's one of the earliest trucking platforms in China to be listed. They're actually on the stock market now. There is an equivalent of Holio in China called Duckbill, D-U-C-K.

Okay.

So the fundamentals is exactly the same, guys. To most people, a truck is a truck. But our— if we go down to specifics, our kind of trucks are Optimus Prime. You guys know Transformers, right? Basically the, the Primus that with a trailer to pick up a box. So this is drayage in the US or American terms, and in Southeast Asia is more haulage. So the convoys are point-to-point, state-to-state trucking. which is what Food Truck Alliance and Convoy is. The equivalence of Haulio in the US is Trade Alliance, and it's co-founded by Steve Sear. He's also a good friend of mine, right? And essentially what we are is that in Southeast Asia, we are one of the first that actually focuses just from haulage to start off first. And most of these guys like Cargo, Retase, they started from mid-mile. They started from domestic point-to-point wing boxes. You know, it's more point-to-point domestic distribution. deliveries. They are starting to come up to my space, don't get me wrong, right? But they are very few. I think EcoTruck, I would say that it's one of the phenomenal— quite a phenomenal company in Vietnam, which I'm actually recently connected to the CEO as well. I think we share a lot of similar vision, right? And Easyhaul, I forgot to mention Easyhaul from Malaysia.

Yeah, I see.

But Easyhaul is more DHL now today. They are competitive, but I actually see them as fellow comrades trying to digitize and trying to transform the incumbents. So to another degree, I don't really view competition as a threat. I see these fellows as having the same vision and wanting to sort of transform the industry together. When I see it from this lens, I don't really want to see them as a competitor or threat, if you get what I'm trying to say.

You mentioned company like Wear6 in Indonesia who has, you know, a huge amount of cash on their account. I mean, they could actually be a threat to you, right?

Could be, yeah. I think I know Andre himself. The funny thing is I'm actually connected to all the CEOs and founders of these companies, right? And I think Andre, I've known him since 2018. I think he was on the show before. I don't know. I went to chain.net and I saw It was listed, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so I mean, at the end of the day, we are a younger batch of entrepreneurs trying to sort of transform things. Yes, could they be competitive? I think so. But we are— I feel that we are living in a world today where we are talking about both— the concept of coopetition gets closer and closer, right? We should really think about how we can, you know, focus on where we are strong at, you know, upstream to downstream, downstream to upstream. Waresec started out wanting to be an Airbnb for warehouse. But they, they sort of pivoted to more trucking in Indonesia. And that's just how I see things.

But Alvin, I want to challenge you on this because, you know, with the ChainTech platform, you know, we actually have, we have studied the integration aspect of many of you guys and realized very quickly that there are very few APIs and integration between each other. So you're saying that you are doing some kind of co- competition or you could be partners eventually. But right now, as we look at your solution, do you connect with last mile provider? Do you connect with other platforms? You don't, right? And we don't see that happening anywhere in Asia. Very few connections between all those logtech companies.

I think it takes two hands to clap, right, Max? Well, the first way to think about this is we need to remove the concept that we are competing, right? If I may, I am actually reaching out to logistics— okay, well, not logistics, delivery. I can outrightly name delivery if Tom is listening to this.

Okay.

I know this. I just recently met the country head in Thailand as well. We are both portfolio companies of PSA Unboxed, and they are in a very specific space that I'm not in, and I'm in a very specific space that they are not in. And because of PSA's influence, PSA Cargo Solutions is looking to do— their vision is to sort of looking at orchestrating supply chain. So that's the reason why they invested in us as a first-mile platform, and that's the reason why they invested in Delhivery as a mid-mile to last-mile platform. So yes, Max, you're right, there is no integration works today yet, but because we are in our formative years of trying to fight incumbents to begin with, I do believe that This will happen soon. Fingers crossed. I hope we will because I am actually open to integrating with any of them. If you are listening, any of you are listening here, Horlio is happy to integrate with any of you. Just hit me up.

Horlio, Alvin, I've got a suggestion here because we have got a similar challenge at Logchain. And I don't know whether you're familiar with Nexforce, but we have just basically signed up an MOU with Nexforce.

Yeah.

And I sat down, yeah, and I said, look, we are doing similar things but not the same thing. And let's stop with the flirting, let's get on with the dating. So we are— we have now got, um, some announcements coming out in the next—

And when's the marriage?

Well, we've got to do the dating first. But this is what I would suggest for you to do with some of your competition out there. Yeah, take a POC trial. That's exactly what we're doing with Nexport. So we're working with a couple of small customers and that's basically our dating process.

You don't have to— I totally agree.

That's the way to do it.

Pick a POC. 2 weeks later, I'm meeting Logistly, Rulin. Rulin, if you're listening to this, I'm meeting her for lunch, right? And I make it a point, right? I think we are reaching a stage where, you know, it's beyond I fight you, you fight me. I really think we should think about collaboration because at the end of the day, who do we serve? What problem are we solving? Go back to your fundamentals.

Go back to the platform.

If today DHL is using Haulio for haulage, which they are, right? And DHL wants to go downstream, why should I do it by myself if I can collaborate with Logisti who already have their own network in Indonesia? Why start from scratch? Just work together, right? And the market is big enough, guys.

This goes back to the conversation about zero-sum game. I don't believe all of it is a zero-sum game.

It's not. You're right, bro. It's not zero-sum game. Because if you can create more value, then you make trade facilitate better, then therefore it's not a zero-sum game anymore. That's what all of us want as a logistician here, right?

I think, Alvin, to go back to your point, sorry, I think a lot of the founders, and again, are still immature when it comes to this kind of discussion, and they still have, they see the next startup To be honest, it's not about maturity because to be honest, guys, Holio had to go through a difficult 2 and a half years before COVID as well, before Southeast Asia opened up.

And I think a lot of these founders share the same pain that I felt. Andy himself included.

Me too.

It was difficult. It was a slaughterhouse, right? When COVID happened, a lot of our existing customers, the truckers, they all have different priorities. We just basically had to survive. And I think now that the world is reopening again, I'm traveling almost every week around Singapore. I see a lot of possibilities.

Okay.

I really want to take this opportunity to reach out to any of them, like EcoTruck, LogiBand. I know all of them. Let's work together because that is the ultimate purpose we want to serve. We want to solve a problem for our customers.

Yeah.

Anyway, this is one of the things we will also help you with the Gentek platform because this is something we're going to be— we're going to be coming to you and challenging you on your APIs and the integration that you have. We have all the startups listed on the database, so we can then see the connection and see how you guys can actually collaborate together.

Awesome.

So that's something. Final question before we wrap up. We have a few more minutes. Andy or Rui, do you have one quick final question that you would like to ask to Avinia?

Yes. So you mentioned about the partnership. So how do you think the partnership will look like in your next plans when you launch to other markets?

Well, when I was in Hong Kong, I actually, you know, was at this event where it's a live pitching competition, and they asked me, Alvin, what's the biggest and the most challenging thing for you to scale? And I answered that I need to just find more Alvins in the rest of Southeast Asia. It was a very intuitive answer, and that is the spirit of it. And I realized that going into Thailand now, when we are actually already there, and in Indonesia and in Vietnam moving forward, it's really about finding the local heroes. So my future partnerships would be forming possible joint ventures. We want to work with the local champions. We want to work with the local Albins of the industry to sort of ultimately bring value to the market. Because why did Grab manage to outwit Uber? Because it's not a— in Southeast Asia, it's a very unique market. You've got to hyperlocalize. You need to— when I go, I'm lucky, right? To the viewers here, I mean, if you watch me, you know my face. I look like a Southeast Asian. When I go to Thailand, they speak Thai to me. When I go to Indonesia, they speak Indonesian to me. But you got to understand that Southeast Asia, this is our blood. This is my playground. This is my home ground, right? We have to really work with the hyper-localized heroes because the truckers, although they are more or less the same, but the truckers in Vietnam could be very different from the truckers in Thailand. And you need a local hero to get that. And I'm very self-aware to know that I am not the right person. I do— I might look like a Vietnamese, but I'm not one. But so we will actually look out for local partners, and I'm doing a big shout out now here. HoLeo is expanding to Vietnam, Malaysia, as well as Philippines in the next year or so, next 18 months. Look out, just we are happy to partner. Basically, I don't want to own everything by myself because I don't believe in that.

Okay, Andy, final, final question before we close.

Yeah, quick one, not so much to do with the business but more to do with you personally because You know, there's a lot of demand from investors, the markets, you know, things like COVID happen. So companies have to fork, they have to pivot, you have to, you have to be agile, but you can sometimes lose your way, not just as a business, but also as an individual. Do you have a personal North Star that occasionally when you get lost and you get distracted factors, do you have a North Star that you look to and say, that's where I'm going?

Perfect question. My people. I think, you know, there are— I have a team of 75 now, and not just my people, my stakeholders, my investors, the people who believe in me, right? And that is my motivation. To be very honest with you guys, I actually went through a little bit of depression. I look very lively, I look very jovial, but when in 2020 I had to fire quite a lot of people, I had to restructure, I had to reorg, you know, and our company has a philosophy and a policy of What we call once a Horlion, always a Horlion. And a lot of these personal people who— guys, you are a founder yourself, Andy, right? What we had at the beginning is just a dream. People are following you because they trust you and they see the vision, and you just have a dream. That's all you have. And these are things that keeps me motivated, and these are things that keeps me awake at night. And I must say that I am co-founder and CEO today. But between myself and my founders, and by the other founder, is that we both know very well. Again, Horlio has 5 core values. Humility, heart, honesty, hunger, as well as hustle. Humility is something that is very important to me as a person, as a founder, because I know that every single day I wake up, you cannot— you can never take away my title as co-founder, but you can possibly take away my title as CEO, and I need to make sure that Every day I wake up and I know I'm the best person for the job. And these are things that keeps me going. And, you know, do I have the ambition to want to lead a 2,000-PEX company to become a unicorn one day? I hope I can be. There are a lot of big founders like Anthony Tan, you know, Razor, Tan Ming Liang. These people are people that I look up to. You have this thing of what we call imposter syndrome at times, but you've got to keep challenging yourself and tell yourself that I want to be the better version of myself every single day. So these are things that keeps me rooted and motivated every day.

All right. With that, thank you very much, Alvin, for joining us today. Thank you for sharing insight. We had a lot more questions.

It's okay.

But we're running out of time and we want to keep that episode also quite short. Again, thank you for sharing those insights.

Happy to do round 2 with you guys if you want.

Absolutely.

We'll invite you again. Because we can probably cover a lot more topics with you and we'll do a follow-up episode.

Happy to continue. Thank you so much, guys.

Thank you. Thank you. I want to also thank Andy and Henry for joining me for those intensive round of questions and we'll make it happen. Again, if you want to watch this, we are going to be available on different platforms. We'll also be pushing this episode on chain.net, the online community that we manage, and also on the different WhatsApp groups that we have across Asia. So I want to thank you, all of you, for joining us, and we look forward to seeing you again at the next episode. Thank you.

Great pleasure. Thanks, guys.

Take care, guys.

See ya.