Interview with Berkay Adlim, Founder & CEO, Kamion

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. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of ChainTech. My name is Max Henry from the Global Supply Chain Council. And I'm joined today with my co-host Shantanu Laxman. Hi, Shantanu, how are you?

Hi, Max, good to be here with you and also with the host participants here with Michael and Becky. And I'm, I'm based in India. I'm a consultant of supply chain with various industry ties to Threads. So I would be very glad to join you with the discussion here. Over to you, Max.

Thanks again for joining us on another episode of the show as we continue to host some of the most interesting chain tech founders and discuss the rapid rise of supply chain logistics and procurement technology across the APAC region, Europe, and North America. As we jump in today's conversation, I want to make sure that you are also aware of our chain tech platform that we recently launched at chaintech.net. And you can also find all the previous episodes of those interviews on chaintech.net. So today I'm joined by Berkay Adli, who is the founder and CEO of Camion, based in Turkey, together with Michael Friedman, who is an investor of Camion, also based in China. So I'll let both of them introduce themselves.

Yeah, so thanks. It's great being here. My name is Berkay. I've been working in operations-intensive businesses since the age of 12. Started in the summers. These include procurement departments, logistics departments, warehousing departments. Between 2010 and 2019, I lived in the US. I am originally from Turkey, and my time in the US was spent getting my undergrad degree. I worked 2 years in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and then I did my grad school in New York. All these experiences were effectively focused on data and algorithms and, and doing large-scale analysis on large slots of data. So coming back to Turkey in 2019, I now saw how data and algorithms and software could add efficiency to operations-intensive businesses. And hence, after a little market research, Kamyon was born.

Okay, Michael.

Hi, I'm Mike Friedman from Reflect Ventures. We invest in B2B and B2B2C in emerging markets. We focus on logistics, supply chain distribution, transport, and fintech.

Okay. So I want to go back on your background, Berkey, and understand what you did before actually starting Cammion. Have you, did you have any corporate job before starting the company?

I, my only work experience was involved in a startup and we were building a platform that was connecting just as Cammion is connecting truckers with loads. We were connecting data scientists with large companies, Fortune 50, Fortune 10, through a platform that we were building.

So, what did you, why did you get started with Cameo and what was the idea of starting this company?

So, it was mostly a function of my own background through a young age because I was really involved, deeply involved with operations-intensive business before even my professional life started. And I saw firsthand how logistics worked, how warehousing worked, how procurement worked. And I, through my time in US, I also learned how data and algorithms and software can add efficiency to industries. Coming back to Turkey, I was either going to work at a corporate job or I was going to go ahead and try to build my own company. And what happened is when you look at Turkey, it's in a very advantageous position along trade routes connecting the East and the West. Trucking accounts for a very large percentage of GDP. So taking my own background into account and Turkey's lucky position in terms of the geographical landscape into account, we have decided to build Kamyon after a period of brief market research.

So in one sentence, what is the company doing?

So we're effectively, in a very, very summarized way, we're building the Uber for trucks for Turkey and the surrounding regions. We go to large companies, we act as the only point of contact for them. and we source them trucks through technology. That's a very brief summary. And if you want me to, we can always dive deeper into exactly what we do.

So what kind of problem are you solving with Cammion?

So, well, traditionally, when you look at logistics operations, there's a lot of manual work involved, whether it be on the trucker side or whether it be on the company side. There's a lot of email, Excel spreadsheets, And what we're doing is through our platform, we're trying to take all that data, put it in a structured manner so that we can have it in one place, analyze it, and add efficiency to both sides of the platform. We're effectively delegating what humans used to do, the manual things, to software so that humans can have free time to think about strategy and growth more efficiently.

What are some of the biggest benefits that you see with a solution, especially when you are selling the solution to your— so if I understand well, you mentioned customers are end-user shippers, right?

Yes.

And what do you think are the biggest benefits for them in using Camion?

Well, first things, you have to do the basics very well. And the basics are pricing, high operational performance, and emerging— in emerging markets, you have to have a trustworthy pool of carriers. Once you have that in place, the main differentiator for us becomes building the technology. And we have over time effectively become quite good at understanding exactly what our corporate customers, corporate users need in terms of visibility and control into their supply chain. And we can build these solutions for them. It's very hard for traditional logistics companies to do that, mainly because they have been around for—

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, Shandan, you're muted.

If you want to, uh, how do your solutions compare against some of the most established all-in-one enterprise suites? Uh, what is your company's sweet spot? I mean, in the sense, how will you leverage your company? That's the question.

So there are, there are, uh, 2 main spaces we see— let's say 3 main spaces we see when you go to large corporate customers in terms of the solutions they use. Uh, there are TMS systems that we call transportation management systems that don't get into the operations of the business that much. They don't take responsibility of hauling the load, but they provide a software suite for everyone to have the data in one place. The second type of services is traditional logistics companies. They take responsibility of hauling the load, but they can't necessarily build the software. The third is freight forwarders, digital freight forwarders like ourselves. We can do both. And so what we do is we go to large companies and tell them, Okay, we will be your only point of contact. We will hold these loads for you. We will take care of the operations. We will take full responsibility. On top of that, we'll help you build your internal workflows on the software that's going to help you manage all the data that you collect and analyze it and add efficiency to your operations. That's where we differentiate ourselves because we can do both operations and software well.

Okay, that's great. And what I would like to ask you, one personal question, like you were all in all right from data, like PwC. I think you worked with PwC as an intern in the initial days. So how do you graduate into trucking? You know, how— what is that passion of yours that made you to switch into trucking?

So when you, when you look at my time spent before 2010, I was in Turkey. And I have— was born in Istanbul, but I grew up in a small rural city called Kütahya, where manufacturing was very, very prevalent. Basically, the only thing the city had was manufacturing. And I started working in the summers when I was 12. And most of the experiences I got in that city were mostly geared towards logistics and procurement and warehousing. And these experiences continued on until I was in college. During college, I started to do more official internships, including consulting and software and whatnot. But before college, I was fully immersed in traditional industries, operations-intensive industries. So my experiences in the US basically helped me go back to my youth and see how these experiences could be shaped through software and data and analytics.

And also, one other question is integrating the truckers into your website. Don't you think that is the kind of work that is going to give you a lot of pain in the initial days, maybe? Because talking to these guys, they won't understand common language. So how do you deal with these guys?

So it's— well, first off, I think it's worth mentioning that we as a company are operating at what you call the edges of the internet. The internet has been prevalent since 1995. It's been with the consumers since then, but it is only now that it's starting to get to the pockets of the truckers. So we are lucky in that sense that we don't have to buy them phones and we don't have to give them tablets for them to be connected to the internet. So that's a plus for us. In terms of understanding how they operate as users of the internet, understanding their needs and catering to them, There is no one silver bullet. It's always a function of staying very close to your users, understanding what they need, and building the whole company backwards from there. So we have built as Communion processes within the company that is going to help us do that efficiently and consistently. We stay very close to the truckers, we stay very close to the shippers, understand their needs, and cater our technology through what they tell us. And so it doesn't have to be a phone app that the truckers use. You can use— you can integrate with various GPS providers, or you can use phones and phone calls as needed to collect the data. You can use the app to collect the data as needed. So that's how you view collecting the data that's going to make the whole supply chain visible. And over time, of course, As the user needs evolve and as their habits evolve, we have been seeing that they start to use our app much more effectively than they used to a year ago, 2 years ago.

Okay. Beke, before we move on to other questions, I wanted to understand what, you know, the market that you're addressing in Turkey. Can you give us an idea of the market size for logistics, you know, in comparison maybe with other countries around Turkey? And also the type of ecosystem that you are, you know, dealing with in terms of number of trucking companies or shippers, you know. So give us some numbers. Yeah, sure.

So Turkey is Middle East and North Africa's largest economy. And trucking accounts for $36 billion of that economy. The whole logistics market is $73 billion. Half of that is trucking. 90% of all All shipments via land is done by trucking. There are approximately 850,000 truckers. Trucking accounts for 5 to 6% of GDP, which is slightly larger than your average country's trucking percentage in GDP. That's mainly because of the geographic location that Turkey is in. 95% of the whole trucking market is comprised of small fleets. These are fleets either with 1 truck or 10 trucks. And so there's a huge opportunity for aggregating all these trucks, making one big fleet out of them to serve shippers that need trucks.

How about the 3PLs in Turkey? I mean, do you have— I mean, I guess you have the multinational, the foreign 3PLs operating, the big boys, but do you also have local transportation companies which have quite a big fleet?

Yeah, yeah, definitely. We have both. We have global players and local players, both of which are very large. They on average, there's, I mean, there isn't very healthy data on this, but what we have seen is on average 35 to 40% of all revenues come from the trucks they own. The rest is from freight forwarding. So because there are many trucks in Turkey that are independent, 3PLs have become used to working with other people's trucks than their own trucks, basically.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Where do you see, you know, next 2 years growth, Bakli? I mean, do you find the multiple of excess, or how do you state Turkey market as such in the trucking business?

Can you— I'm very sorry, can you please repeat the question? Can you elaborate on that?

How big is Turkey market? I mean, if you consider that and how you're going to grow in next 2 years, how do you see yourself growing in next 2 years? That's what I meant, actually.

So effectively, we're a business that has what you call a flywheel effect. The more truckers on our platform, the more business, the more shippers, the more shippers on our platform, the more truckers. So it's the math tells you that you have to grow very big and you have to become a market leader, at least locally first. That we are planning on doing in the next year or 1.5 years. And then through the momentum that we gain locally, we will be starting to expand into neighboring regions, whether that be Middle East, North Africa, Eastern Europe, or the Asian side. That is still to be seen. But what I can tell you for now is we're definitely shooting to become the market leader locally because that's what makes sense in the business that we're building, mainly because it has what you call a flywheel effect.

I'll add something. If you take a look at the map, you will see why people call Turkey the center of the universe or the center of the world. It is smack in between Europe, and Central Asia and the Middle East and North Africa. If you're going and sending trucks anywhere from Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, which is politically difficult, Iraq, right? Or if you want them to come up from Saudi Arabia, they're going to have— and they want to go to Europe, they're going to have to go through Turkey. Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan used to have the option of a route through Russia and Ukraine. That's dead probably for a decade. So Turkey is the center. And of course, Europe going into any of those regions as well. If you're going to send it by truck, you're sending it through Turkey. Your other options are boats across the Black Sea. That's becoming a more and more dangerous route. Or if you're going to the Middle East, boats across the Mediterranean.

Okay.

But if you're going by truck, It's Turkey. Turkey is the center.

What is the current adoption of digital freight marketplace in a country like Turkey? I can imagine, I mean, we know that the concept is working in more mature developing countries, right? But how about Turkey? And do you have any numbers on that? And do you feel that the end users, the shippers, which are manufacturers, retailers, and brand owners are increasingly adopting that technology?

So what we see is we were very lucky in the sense that despite Turkey being a very large market, that the adoption of digital freight forwarders was relatively low when you look at the West. And I think we should be seeing that as a very important opportunity. And it's a super important point of differentiator, especially when we go visit the large clients, large shippers. And they have not come across a freight forwarder that's able to build technology before. So that's a huge plus for us. Long story short, global companies that operate here, the likes of Unilever, Pepsi, DHL, they have been working with digital freight forwarders in other geographies, but not in Turkey yet. That's a huge opportunity. And they— when you go and talk to them, they understand exactly why they need digital freight forwarders because other other regions of their company have been working with them. Besides the large global players, there are very large Turkish players as well in the shippers domain, and they too have not been yet exposed to digital freight forwarding. So Turkey is largely, largely has not fully adopted the digital freight forwarding model, which I think is a huge opportunity Because what we see from our shipper visits is that they are ready to adopt the digital freight forwarding model. It's just that there hasn't been a company that has come across that could do that before.

On our side, looking at this across emerging markets, we see that the model works in many markets that have less digital penetration than Turkey. You can look at TruckitIn in Pakistan, Trucker across the Middle East, Amitruck in Nigeria and similar markets, Eli in Egypt, TruckLagbi in Bangladesh. If they can work, it's going to be able to work in a place like Turkey.

Yeah. And, uh, uh, Beckley, uh, can you integrate your software into any of these enterprise, uh, like SAP or any other data producer of the big company? Like, in case if I want to integrate the tracking part of it into some of the systems. So is it possible?

Yes, yes, it's something we are currently doing with especially our large global customers who use a TMS or who use an ERP, and it's a problem that we can easily solve. Yes, we can do that.

That's, that's a plus point because, you know, the most of the big companies would like to work like that. You know, they don't want to deviate from their existing system. They integrate their invoices into Their transport systems.

100%. I agree. Yes.

Just to go back on competition and the other companies operating in the space. What, you know, so you mentioned, Michael, some well-known names in other countries. How about the international players, companies like Flexport and the others? You know, are they pushing into Turkey? Are they, you know, is this competition for you guys?

So the companies in the West have their hands full mostly, so they haven't been trying to penetrate the Turkish market yet. The main competition we see is from other countries in the region, Middle East and North Africa, some in Eastern Europe, but mainly when we go and visit the shippers and we talk to them and we survey them, we haven't yet come across one that is working with a digital freight forwarder. So that shows us that the penetration of global players, global digital freight forwarders has not matured yet. And again, we try to see that as an advantage as much as we can and we try to utilise that advantage when we still have time because I don't think it's going to last forever. I think at some point they will decide and enter the Turkish market and compete. So this is a good time to be building a digital freight forwarding model. in Turkey at the moment.

Yeah, adding to that question, Max, is I really wonder why the other competitors are not coming into Turkey, because based on what information is available, it's the biggest market. I mean, in Europe, it's the biggest market. Is there any particular reason that these competitors are not coming so far? Because this is quite a, you know, topic that I would like to discuss.

Yeah, yeah, that's a very good question. When you look at the European market, the European market has a very unique advantage in the sense that when you start operating in one country, you're effectively operating in the majority of the countries in the European Union because they have what you call, you can cross borders without much hassle. And if you're a European player, Trying to operate in other European countries is much different than trying to operate in a country that's not in the European Union. That requires you to build a muscle in terms of dealing with the regulators and dealing with the local dynamics. Going to the other companies that are operating in the region, Middle East and North Africa, or other parts of the world, the model we have is reasonably regulations-heavy. It's not easy. You have to go to the government, you have to get your documents, you have to make sure you have everything in place before starting to operate in the country. And it is only then that you start to deal with local dynamics. And Turkey in many ways, in terms of local dynamics, can be seen as the China of the Middle East because despite it being a very large market, it has historically been very hard to penetrate by global players. 2 examples I'll give are eBay. And Uber. Uber has been in the Turkish market since 2015, but they are yet to grow. It's mainly because they haven't set a foothold in terms of having relationships with the regulators and local taxi drivers. eBay, similarly, they bought a company here, they tried to operate it for a decade almost, and they left Turkey. I think it was 3, 4 years ago. So it's a Long story short, there are 2 main answers to your question. The first one is it's reasonably regulation heavy, so you should be able to deal with regulators and the government quite well. And the second is Turkey has a lot of unique characteristics that make it hard to penetrate. And so it's best to be a Turkish player to be building in the Turkish ecosystem. That's just the way it has been for the last couple of decades. And we try to utilize that as an advantage as much as we can to grow in the Turkish market.

Okay.

Let's talk about funding, Berkay. Can you share with us how did you get started? Did you actually bootstrap the company? Did you raise capital right from the beginning? And what is your current funding stage?

So we started to do our market research in Q2 2019. We launched the company in the beginning of 2020. We've been actively generating revenue since 2021. And the first initial years were very difficult for us because we had to nail the model down. We on purpose stayed quite frugal, quite disciplined in our spending. And the main reason was we were mainly focused on learning, learning what the customers need, who our target segment is, both in terms of the carriers and in terms of the shippers. And once we felt that we had a good amount of learnings collected over a period of 1 year, we decided to fund the business ourselves initially, bootstrap it. And it is only last year that we got accepted into Y Combinator in May. May 2022. And from there, we have raised a seed round of $2 million. And with that momentum, we'll be building, we'll be building to become the market leader in Turkey. And hopefully in our Series A, we'll be raising money to expand internationally.

How did you find Michael? Or maybe Michael found you.

Michael, you want to answer that or I can?

How did you guys meet?

Yeah, I'm trying to remember. How did we find you?

It's, um, we got in touch through, through, through YC, I think. Through YC Demo Day or right before.

Maybe right before Demo Day, but we would not have found you through YC. There are, you know, 1,000 companies, 99% of which we wouldn't touch. It isn't worth the, the time.

Who made the first move? Who approached who? Who was the first person to—

I'm looking for the first email.

Okay. I mean, you probably remember. Did you actually actively approach Michael or Michael approach you?

Yeah, I think it's a combination of both. We got introduced from what I remember, Max.

Okay.

Someone reached out to me, but then we got introduced with Michael. So I think it's neither. That's from what I remember. That's how this whole dynamic played out.

So apparently you were talking with Dan Dieck, our partner on LinkedIn. And the first email I have is from you to him saying, following up on Arlington conversation here.

Okay.

So you'd have to tell me, ah, you sent Dan a message 6 years ago.

Okay. All right.

Yeah, that was for my business.

And that was obviously something totally unrelated. And so this one was luck and coincidence.

Exactly. Exactly.

This is very much in the realm of what we invest in. We've also invested in trucking and in Pakistan, which is full load, and Truckistan in Pakistan, which is less than full load. And we're looking at a number of other trucking companies in Africa. It's one of the models we like.

So what made Camion exciting for you, Michael, when you started talking to Berke and what made you decide to invest in the company?

Can I open up a parenthesis and add something real quick about Michael and his team? We, through Y Combinator, we've had the good fortune of interacting with a lot of funds and a lot of investors who were potentially interested in the business. In terms of having a conversation with Michael and his team, I would say they were the most knowledgeable team in the area. The questions they asked and their understanding of the model was on par to none. So I just wanted to put that out there and make sure that we get recorded with me saying this. They have put together a very good team that has a deep understanding of the space. I am now closing.

Thank you, Barakay.

So, on your side, Michael, what makes you excited?

Well, that's basically the answer. There are some models that we have. We are a model-first investor. We find the models we like. We learn as much about them as we can. We talk to many different companies in that space and we identify the ones that we think are the best. to invest in. And Camion was one of those that we decided was among the best.

Okay.

So, talking about—

So, by the time we talked to him, we talked to many companies in that space.

Okay. Talking about model, so let's talk about revenue model maybe of Camion. If you could share with us, Berke, how do you make money?

So, we are a fully licensed freight brokerage shop. So, what we do is we buy and sell the loads effectively. Now let's say you are a shipper and I am Communion. I will invoice you the whole amount of the loads that I'm holding. This could be weekly, daily. Some ask for monthly invoices, which is fine. And then after the operations is complete, the trucker, the carrier invoices their own, their own services to Communion. So Communion makes revenue from this spread between these 2, what I have bought from you and what I have sold. Sorry, what I have bought from the carrier and what I have sold to you, we make money from the spread effectively. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it makes sense. And that spread, I want to understand because again, probably the shippers are used to working with traditional 3PL or I would say more traditional transportation companies who already have been aggregating small truckers. So that spread would be much cheaper than the typical 3PL that they will have?

Well, it started off like that. Now it is not because as you establish yourself with your shippers and the geography in general, you don't want to keep on competing on prices forever. What you want to do is show them that you can build the technology, that you have high service levels, and that you operate with full transparency. And once people understand that, you get very good numbers in terms of shipper retention. That's what we've been seeing. Almost none of the large shippers that we have started working with since the day we were founded have left us. And that's a very important testament to our high service levels, to our ability in building technology, and to our company culture. So once you have that in place, you are effectively moving up the market, not having to compete with other 3PLs on prices as much as you used to. Doesn't mean that you don't ever do it. It just means that you now have a little bit more luxury on not competing on prices. I don't think we'll ever get to a place where we never compete on prices. I hope we do. But what we have seen is the amount of competition we see that's based on only pricing has been decreasing. The more we operate.

Yeah. Let me— let's talk about your team and, you know, the strength of your company. And also, if you could give us some numbers, you know, the sales numbers, if you're able to share in a percentage also, it's fine, actually.

Sure, sure. So we're right now a 16-person team. And almost, I would say, 45 to 50% of our of our team is comprised of product people, and we try to pick product people from people who have some sort of a mobility background one way or the other, whether it be fleet management software, whether it be food delivery or whatnot. In terms of the operations team, we try to work with people who have had at least 10 years of experience in logistics and who have experience in working with very large freight forwarders. And then we have a couple of different quote-unquote departments. They are too small to be departments, but I'll go ahead and call them departments anyway. We have a very strong marketing muscle. We have a very strong strategy team, and we have a very strong finance manager who helps us manage all the issues related to finance. So to summarize it, you have to do 3 things very good. One is building the technology. The second is understanding operations. And the third is having your finances in place. And so we have built the company around those 3 pillars very carefully and selecting the hires very competitively, basically. In terms of the sales numbers, to answer your question, we have worked with close to 75 shippers last month. We have close to 10,000 truckers on our platform. 2,000 of them are actively holding loads with us, and we have been growing quite fast beginning 2023. We expect to at least triple our revenue through the end of this year, but we are shooting for 10x growth. So we still have ways to go, but the initial numbers have been strong from what we see.

Okay, what do you, what do you do other than trekking? Your other hobbies?

My own hobbies? Yeah, um, I like to, I like to exercise, uh, and I like to read books. Um, I— that's a very good question, mainly because it is something that I have been thinking about. I have played drums in high school, so I'm thinking of picking that back up. But I could get more hobbies, definitely. I have been spending so much time on Commune. I want to get more hobbies in my interests, definitely.

For sure.

If Berke is going to pick up drumming again, it's all pity his neighbors.

Yeah, I agree with that. Or my wife. Yeah, it could pity my wife as well.

Yeah. Berke, as a founder and CEO of a company, what is your biggest challenge right now? What keeps you awake at night and drives you crazy? Give you the biggest headache?

I think it's— so we have talked about how our business is effectively go big or go home. You can't build a small freight forwarding shop if you are venture-backed, especially if you have strong investors who have high expectations. And the main thing that keeps me up at night is, are we executing accurately and fast enough. Both are very important. You have to make accurate decisions and you have to move fast. So, are we baking this into the culture of the company? And are we becoming, do we have, are we becoming, beginning to have mental attrition? Are we beginning to become lazy? And that's, those are the things that keep me up at night. It's effectively questions of momentum and questions that will help you keep the momentum going. And that's my main role as the CEO. And that's what I try to instill in the company while also making people, keeping people happy. These are the main questions that I wrestle with day to day.

Okay. Is there a temptation for Camion to go into a hybrid model? Because we've talked with Shanda, and remember, Shanda, we had a number of interviews with companies in other countries where had similar concepts and they were, you know, starting to lease warehouses and getting into operations and, you know, and trying to play the 3PL on top of their digital marketplace. Is there a temptation here for you to go into physical operations and support some of your clients with actual 3PL services as well?

There is a temptation, but you have to make decisions very carefully and deliberately. And so what we have been looking at is there's 2 routes. You could either become a full-fledged 3PL going down to the LTL market, less than truckload market, leasing warehouses and filling one truck with multiple loads from multiple shippers. You could go into and you could complement that with international shipping services and whatnot, just as like an international freight forwarder. Or you could wait and see if you have the scale to become a full-fledged digital platform that allows people to buy gasoline, to buy tires, to buy secondhand trucks, to have access to credit lines through your digital platform. The second one is more scalable. The first one is relatively more in reach. So, it's a function of your ambition as a company. It's a function of your risk appetite. These are questions that we are still thinking of. And long story short, to answer your question, yes, there's a temptation, but it is something that I want to deliberately think about for a while whilst we're still scaling the platform, because I think it's an irreversible decision and you have to be very deliberate about it.

Yeah. Michael, what's your take on this, on that hybrid model that we've seen in many other startups?

I think that to begin with, there is a huge amount to be done just in Cameon's core business. You know, this is a huge, huge industry, and the focus should be on building it and building it profitably. The— what we see is that all of these companies become fintechs, and he should be moving in that direction with financing the transport, right? There's always a disconnect between when the shipper wants to pay and when the trucker wants to get paid.

Yeah.

And providing credit facility into that, that's a big opportunity right there. And then providing other services that make you stickier and stickier where the small trucker wants to stick with you and the shipper feels he needs to stick with you. If they go beyond that, I don't see any reason to go into less than full load. But what about B2B warehousing? managing the warehousing side for people. We've got an investee in Pakistan that is doing that, and very successfully, with a number of big MNC customers as well as all of the big Pakistan brands and B2B e-commerce companies. This is where I would be looking rather than extending out into, you know, oh, let's finance trucks, right? You find— well, I should I should take that back. Asset-based financing for trucks becomes a very interesting thing because you can take the payment for the truck out of the payment that you owe to the trucker for his trips.

Yeah.

Now you're in a pole position to get repaid. It takes a lot of the risk out of it. It gives you an advantage that nobody else can. So you're building this ecosystem where other people effectively cannot compete. It becomes an unfair advantage. But you should be looking for extensions like that. Not just, oh, what else can we do in trucking?

Yeah, yeah. This, uh, just wanted to ask you about, uh, you know, environmental. Like now we have, uh, you know, carbon footprint and sustainability. So how— because most of the trucking guys now have to get involved with the carbon footprint because that is going to be another norms that they're going to set in every countries. So do you have—

how are you going to go about on Yeah, I can, I can go ahead and answer that if you want me to.

Yeah.

Well, I'll give you a number. In 2018, this is 2018's data, and I don't think the data changed very much. But right now, let's assume that when I go out to a highway and if I stop 100 trucks on a Turkish highway, approximately 37 of them are traveling without a load. They're empty. That has around, per my last calculations, up to billions of dollars in impact to the Turkish economy and to the environment as well. What we're doing is we're building a layer on top of these trucks that helps us collect data and see which one is traveling empty, what the status of each one is. Each 1% reduction you have in this number, the 36.6 is the exact number, gets you $370 million in revenue, and it also decreases carbon footprint. So through this way of thinking, through always measuring this and through measuring our effect on that number, I think we can do 2 things simultaneously. One, respect the environment, reduce the carbon footprint through filling up trucks more efficiently. 2, have higher levels of revenue. It's very rare that you have an opportunity like this as a company where you can shoot for higher revenues and decrease carbon footprints. And it's a problem that we think about consistently, and it's something that we have our eye on always, I can tell you that. And I think it's a very good question, and I think every company should be thinking of ways of reducing waste, whatever their industry is.

Okay, Becca, as we are near the end of this interview, I would like to get your advice. What kind of advice will you give to a founder or someone who wants to start a business, launch a startup focusing, for example, on logistics or supply chain? What would be your one advice you will give him?

So can I give 2, Max?

Yeah, you can give 2.

Okay. So the first one would be to ask the right questions. What I mean by that is you should be asking what a 10-star experience looks like for your customers, whether it be shippers or carriers, and build the company backwards from the answer to that question. And the second one would be think in terms of an OR function instead of an AND— sorry, in terms of an AND function instead of an OR function. What I mean by that is you should be able to walk and shoot gun at the same time. You should be able to move fast as a company, and make accurate decisions at the same time. You should be able to work very hard and have fun at the same time. These shouldn't be mutually exclusive. And once you start realizing that, your whole view of approaching work changes, I think. Those would be my 2 cents on the question.

Okay. All right. So I've got some quick questions for you just to wrap up again this episode. You can answer, Berke, also Michael, you're more than welcome to answer if you want. Cats or dogs?

Cats.

Same here. We agree.

Window or aisle? Aisle.

Aisle.

One of your favorite movies you've seen recently? And what movie comes up?

Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Okay.

All right.

That's an old movie. Michael?

Well, I You know, you're gonna laugh because I'm, you know, I'm old school. So my last movie that I watched with my kids was for Christmas, my favorite Christmas movie, which was Die Hard, right? The best Christmas movie ever made.

All right.

What's your favorite sandwich?

Reuben.

Okay. Michael?

Oh, I'd say sausages with mustard.

Okay. What's your most used app on your phone right now? The one, the app that you always look at and use all day long.

Oh, do we count email apps? We shouldn't count email apps, right?

No, no, no email apps. Something, something.

I would say Calm, Calm, the meditation app Calm.

Oh yeah. Okay.

For me it's Chrome. I mean, I'm sorry, I'm living my life on the internet.

Can't say Chrome. I don't think you can say Chrome.

No, no, no. Something else than Chrome.

Chrome is, it's not an app.

I mean, I live my life on Chrome, email, and LinkedIn.

Okay.

But there are other apps? I didn't know that. Okay.

What's your favorite tool to build your company right now?

The software tool?

Yeah, software tool.

Yeah.

Slack. I would say Slack. We integrate, we use Slack's APIs quite extensively. We have found it useful. So, I'd say Slack for now.

Okay. Michael?

Well, we're on Google, Monday, and Slack.

Okay. Describe the rest of your life in 5 words. Where do you see yourself in 20, 30 years from now doing?

5. Okay. I'd say work hard, stay focused, be happy. Those would be the adjectives. In terms of what I'm doing, I love what I do. So I'll probably continue to continue to work for an extended period of my amount of time, probably until I'm 60 or 70. And after retirement, I'll spend— I'll allocate all of my time to helping people and spending time with loved ones. Not that I'm not doing these right now, I'll just focus on them more.

Okay, Michael.

Well, 30 years from now will be my 80s, and I will be enjoying my revenge on my children while watching them try to deal with their kids. I am so looking forward to that.

Okay, good answer. Thank you guys again for spending your time today. It was great having you back here, Michael, for this interview. Thanks a lot.

Our pleasure.

Great.

Thank you, Max. Thank you, Chandan.

Thanks, Chandan, for joining us also. And so that was again the Gentech interview with, you know, Kamyon and their investor. So I hope you appreciate it, and we'll see you again next time. Thank you.

Take care. Bye-bye.

Thank you all.

Thank you.