Interview with Omar El Kouhene, COO & Co-Founder of Freterium

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. I'm your host, Max Henry, from the Global Supply Chain Council. And I'm joined today with my co-host Sandeep Chatterjee. Hi, Sandeep, how are you?

Hi, Max. Hi, Al. It's good to see you.

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 quick rise of supply chain logistics and procurement technology across the APAC region, the Middle East, Europe, and around the world. As we jump into today's conversation, I want to make sure that you are also aware of the ChainTech platform that we recently launched. And you can check it out at chaintech.net. And also, if you are interested to listen to the previous interviews that we have done already, you can go to chaintech.show. Today we are joined by Omar El-Kohen, who is the co-founder and CEO at Fraterium. Hi Omar, how are you?

Hi Max, hi Sandeep. Yeah, I'm COO, not CEO. Just, I don't want my co-founders to be CEO. Yeah, no problem.

Okay, so let's get started with, you know, we always start with the of you with your background and where you come from. So can you share with us where you come from, where you're based, and how did you actually grow, and maybe talk about also the field of study that you had?

Yeah, okay. So yeah, I was born in Morocco, Casablanca, 35 years ago. You have already been there, Max? Morocco?

Not yet. I'm actually planning to go.

So more Asia guy.

Okay.

Yeah, no, I realize lots of— I mean, in Indonesia, people think Morocco is in Middle East, but it's like in North Africa, so most close to Spain, extreme west. It's a great country if you want to visit. Yeah, so, uh, yeah, I, I studied in Morocco like in a French school, so this is why I have this French accent, a bit like you, Max. And I went to study engineering in France, so basically it was like 2 years of prep school where we were doing only like mathematics, physics, computer science for 2 years, like 2 years of intense studying. And then I joined the engineering school called Supélec, now it's CentraleSupélec. And yeah, it was a great experience because it's where we learn how to be focused, you know, how to succeed, I mean, in an exam without knowing what the teacher looks like, you know. So it's— the 2 first years were very difficult, and then the 2 other years in engineering school, it's more about discovering life, learning a lot of Lots of things, yeah. And yeah, just after my graduation, I decided to go back to Morocco because I had my internship in McKinsey company as a consultant. It was great experience. I learned a lot. It's high standards. Unfortunately, at the end, they didn't want me as a full-time employee because maybe I was not working hard enough. So yeah, but I mean, it's I'm kind of guy who, I mean, when I like something, I can work hard. I can spend like countless hours working on something. But if I don't like something, I just don't do it. And so yeah, so just after that, I wanted to, I discovered logistics world because I had no idea what was logistics because I joined OCP. It's a fertilizer company. You have to know that phosphates is our oil in Morocco. Unfortunately, it's not the same value than oil. But it's one of the 3 most important nutrients in fertilizers, and Morocco is the worldwide leader of phosphate-based fertilizers. So I worked there on logistics strategy. It was more export, 99% of flows were exports. So I was working on chartering vessels to US, South America, India, Europe, everywhere in the world. And yeah, so that was very interesting. I worked there for 2 years. I learned a lot. And then I wanted to be free. I always wanted to be independent and have my own business. So I left OCP to be like a shipping broker. So I was a broker on my own. I had the— so I discovered entrepreneurship because I thought that I was going to leave the company and start having new customers and succeeding from day one, but it was not the case. So the first year was tough. But then I started to have customers in Nigeria, Middle East, Morocco, chartering vessels for them for like cement, steel products. And yeah, but it was like a brokerage company. So, but I always wanted to build something. I mean, to try to build a product. I'm first fan of, even if it's completely, I mean, has nothing to do in terms of industry, but of Airbnb. First thing I, first time I booked an apartment on Airbnb, I was amazed. So today we see, we think like it's obvious, you know, but I mean, building something like that is not easy. And I think that it took them a lot of time. So I wanted to build something on logistic field. And yeah, that was the time where I—

So you were a logistic broker. And so at which stage, what happened? You know, what actually triggered you to start Or, you know, with your co-founder, Frédéric Aymia?

Typically, I tried in the beginning a startup that has nothing to do with logistics. It was about food delivery, but I didn't like it. So, I mean, I just stopped it 3 months after. And then it was like this mood of everybody wanted to build the Uber for freight. So the freight marketplace. And so I had a look at it and had a look at what was going on in other countries. Personally, I didn't— I never believed in the Uber for freight. I think it's too complex to be built. Maybe it can be another step of growth, let's say, process, but providing a marketplace where people can just go and book their trucks, I never believed in that because we know that 80 to 90% of the transport flow are regular flows done by regular companies that deal with— that they have their own fleets. or work with contracted carriers, courier company. So yeah, we, but we noticed that those companies in Morocco, because we met a lot of those companies, they didn't have any software to manage the transport operations or the delivery. So we start, we asked ourselves why. And so we looked at the software that existed. So you have like SAP, Oracle, as you know, it's very expensive. It took a lot of time to implement. You can see results only after 1 year and a half or something. And even the technologies are old. So we said, okay, there is something to do here. So we built the product. We met like more than 100 companies, distributors, 3PL, manufacturers, all those types of companies, also transporters. And we kept iterating for like 2 years.

Yeah.

Fast iteration of building, testing.

Okay.

It was like end 2018. Yeah.

So if you can tell us what exactly your company does, maybe in 2 or 3 sentences, what it does.

What we do today? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what we do today is that we help world-class distributors be leaders in their markets by improving the quality of service, being the most competitive, and also improve their team efficiency, build a company where people would like to work. This is what we do today, this is our focus. But if we look at when we started in the beginning, you know, Morocco is not a big market. So if you want to grow in this type of market, you have to target a lot of different companies. And so we targeted manufacturers like maybe steel producers or cement and 3PL distributors and retailers and all those kinds of companies. But We needed to grow. So we just, when a company wanted to work with us, we just say, okay, we'll do it and we'll find out later how we do it. So we managed in 2021 to go from like 2 customers to 20 enterprise, mid-enterprise level customers. So multiply by 10, but it was, there were like 4 or 5 type of different customers. And it was tough for the product team. So we had to deliver and we realized at a certain point that if we want to build something great, very like be great at what we do, we have to focus on a certain type of company. So we realized that the distributors, I mean, there was like a product market fit between distributors and our product and we are trying to focus on it right now.

Okay.

So can you give— It's a software which actually For the distributor market, right? If I understand it right.

So we target distributors, but it's a delivery management software or transport management software, depends on how you want to look at it. So it will go from planning automation in one click, you know, with different constraints of size, volume, type of fleet that you have, time slots, etc. A smart dispatch, so choose the right carrier or the right vehicle. Then you have the track and trace to track the operations, the status, the documents. And then all about freight invoicing, cash management also when you do cash on delivery, and analytics. So it's like a full product that will cover main distributors' pain points. But the difference in our product, it's not like a— it's built like a platform. So we connect companies. So for example, if you have a 2PL company that have that distributes products on behalf of others. So for example, Nike or Adidas, they will not afford the warehouse in all the countries they want to go. So they work with distributors. So those 3PLs, they will be able to connect their ecosystem. So the shippers, the carriers, the customers, and share the information with everybody in real time.

Okay.

So this, I mean, the product has a strong network effect.

Omar, could you clarify what you mean by distributors? Because it could be importers, it could be wholesalers. Some of them could be retailers as well. So what are you— what is a distributor for you in a typical Asian country, for example?

I think that there are 3 types of distributors. There are manufacturers that will distribute their own products. So typically, usually it's mostly food industries. You have a local food industry processing and you distribute your own product because you want to control the distribution. You have the third-party logistics distribution. So it's a company that will have a warehouse and store the products of other companies and then do the delivery, domestic delivery. We're talking about domestic distribution, national distribution. And then you have wholesalers. Wholesalers, they buy the product and then they distribute it in a certain area. So those companies, all of them, they, I mean, they just, let's say the distribution models are more and more complex. As we saw with the COVID you have different channels. So you have the modern trade, The traditional trade where you have lots of small shops. You have the e-commerce. Sometimes also you have to send to smaller wholesalers in certain areas. And today distributors has to be, I mean, needs to have the agility to adapt himself to the market situations. And for example, in COVID, we saw, for example, in India that the e-commerce boomed a lot during the COVID But now just that, so lots of companies decided, so we need to do e-commerce. Because I mean, we want the products to be consumed by our customers. So, and after that, we see e-commerce decreasing because people want to go out, they want to go shopping. So we give the tool, let's say the logistic operating system to those distribution companies to be able to perform, to grow, and to be competitive.

Okay. So if I look at it, there are, whatever we are doing, there are a lot of companies which are actually doing a similar thing. So again, I'm not getting into direct comparison, but want to understand that how do you differentiate? Like, what is something very, very unique about your product which others don't offer? Because I know SAP, Oracle, very well established, but you are supporting the middle and middle segment. But even in the middle segment, there are other companies which are doing a similar thing.

So I think the strongest— Yeah, I think the strongest competition is Excel. It's not other companies because when we go, we talk to companies in front of us, they use Accept. So you have a lot of companies trying to do it. They try to, they have a different product, they do it differently, they target maybe different markets, they have different pricing models. We are not, we are looking at them of course to see what they do, but I mean, we are not trying to compare ourselves. We are trying, what we want is when we put this product in front of our ICP, that the decision maker and the user say, oh, I want this product, I want to use it. And the competition is Excel, phone calls, WhatsApp. This is what you are seeing. So it's not like we are competing with like Uber in the industry or Amazon and we are trying to get like a niche in the market. No, everything is still to be done in this industry. So we are trying personally to be the best version of ourselves. So we try to focus on a certain type of ICP. We try to build the best product for those companies, even the marketing, the sales model, everything. And yeah, I mean, there is room for everybody. I mean, logistics is big. So yeah.

But Omar, if you had to pick 2 or 3 companies that you think are kind of competing with Ethereum, who are they?

You have like companies like in India, I think one called Locus or GetFarEye or yeah, mainly those companies. Maybe, I mean, they were created a bit before us, maybe like 1 or 2, 2 or 3 years before. We are smaller because I mean, just we are like 30 people, 30 engineers in the team. I think they're 10 times more than us. But yeah, when we target the markets, we don't feel like it's the competition the problem. We feel like if you're able to convince someone to use your product, then you win. He's not choosing between 2 different products. It's very rare that you're in front of this situation.

You're spending a lot of time in Indonesia, Omar. So do you see any companies offering similar solutions? In a place like Indonesia?

In Indonesia, no. I mean, those companies, they are also targeting Southeast Asia, of course. So like Indonesian startup that is doing that, no. Most of the logistics startups, they do digital freight forwarding. This is what they do. And a lot of them are now understanding that it's very difficult to sustain this business model and to grow because the more you grow, the problems grow exponentially. So what they try to do is to use this software and propose it to the customers. But it's different, it's different business. Develop a SaaS company and provide freight transport is completely different businesses. It's something we never do. We never compete with our customers.

Okay.

So this is our identity. We are purely software SaaS company and Okay, so if you—

yeah, follow-up question. Again, you know, you have a good product, but it's always very difficult to get the first customer. And once you get it, yeah, so how did you go about it? Like, what are the challenges you faced? And then going forward, how did you move from there?

I mean, when we started, I mean, we had, we had absolutely no idea of how difficult it was to build a product that is consistent, strong, stable. So we started and to get our first customers, of course, you need your first fans that believe in you, that want to help you. So this is what we did and we were lucky because we had our 2 first customers just before COVID just before the lockdown. It was like small subscription, I mean, let's say maybe like $1,500 per month for every customer. It's not bad. So it was those 2 first customers and then there was a lockdown. And during the lockdown, let's say that hopefully those customers continue to use the products, but to sign new customers was very difficult because everybody was focusing on not having COVID cases in their warehouses and the company. So we worked on the product, we worked on it for like 1 year. I also became a developer and yeah, it's a process of learning. It's not one thing that you discovered that Yeah, we have, of course, we are strong at one feature, mainly the planning automation. It's something that when we show it to the customers or to the prospect, they say, oh, this is something great. And we always, we have a company, someone in like a great company in Dubai, in UAE. He said, I've been like targeted by 20+ software companies and I've never used what you're showing to me right now. So it's encouraging, you know, but it's not, yeah, that's the process. You have to market well your product, you have to sell it well, you know, not to be product pitchers, you have to, because it's not, they're not like buying a product, they're buying like, I mean, it's a partnership with the company. It's not a software they can use for 1, 2 years and then do a change because the cost of changing the software is very high. So it's also about building the trust. having the right business model that decreases the financial risk for the company in front of you, have a good product that works, and yeah, and do it progressively. You know, we try to do it progressively, take a small scope and then show the customer that it's working, adding value, and then we upsell or we increase the scope. I think that's the strategy. There is no upfront cost for us because when we have a company in front of us that have a good fit, we know that if they use a product, they will like it. And if they spend time sharing with you the data and testing the product, it's because they're interested, otherwise they will not do it. So yeah, that's different kind of things that we are trying to hack, let's say, the growth and reduce the risk on the prospect side.

Omar, I'm still a bit confused about what Freightos delivers. So maybe you can tell us, you know, very, very quickly what you offer. And maybe you mentioned that planning automation feature, which seems to be, you know, really hot with your customers. So maybe take us through maybe, you know, some of your key features of your solution.

Okay.

So let's take an example of a distributor who will distribute electronics, you know, through modern trade, the traditional trade, so big store, traditional trade, e-commerce. So this guy, every day the logistics team, they receive orders. Orders should be delivered in a certain location with different weight, with different volume, with different time slots. Sometimes you have some addresses that cannot receive a certain type of vehicle because the road is too small.

Okay.

So you have companies that will manage maybe 100, 200, 500, maybe more orders per day. And this planification today, they do it manually. So it means that you will go on Excel and they will try to group certain orders and find, yeah, to try to optimize the cost and to match with the constraint. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of time. There are, I mean, the risk of mistake is very high. And if you have like one or 2 new orders, you know, before the, before you took your decision, then you have to do your program from the beginning. So this is planning automation, you know, going from orders to bookings, to trucks. It can be like own trucks, outsourced trucks, or couriers. So this is the planning automation. With Fretterium, in one click, it will take 1, 2, 3 minutes depending on number of orders. They will have the perfect planning, and for every route, you will have the exact routing. So for example, today, for a driver that is managing the— I mean, he will go deliver 10 stops. So what you will have, you will have invoices, in paper with addresses written in, uh, yeah, I mean, he has to read the address, so he has to build his own routes before loading the, the, the cargo, and then he has to load the cargo. You know, it's, uh, for, uh, first in, last out. So, uh, it's very complex for them. So it's a, it's a, this is the planning automation. So going from orders to routes, uh, that are going to be shared with the drivers.

Okay.

But Omar, if you are an electronic distributor, You are outsourcing probably most of the time your logistics to a delivery or a free PL. Is this delivery planning supposed to be done by you or by your free PL partner?

It depends. It depends on the model and the pricing that you will have with the QPL. So they can pay per delivery and this, the QPL will be in charge of building the most competitive planning in order to— because they will be able sometimes to merge, I mean, to mix products of different customers to be able to be more competitive. And you have some companies that will send the planning directly. You know, you will please book me one truck that will do these 10 deliveries. So it depends. It depends. Yeah.

Okay. And do you feel that, you know, some of the distributors will actually take ownership of that planning? For most of the time instead of relying on their 3PL to do it?

I think it's what strong distributors do. Yeah, we have companies in Morocco that are distributing consumer goods and this is what they do. I mean, we all know today everything is about focus. So if you are an electronic company or FMCG, you will focus on your marketing, on your sales, not on logistics. It's a different job. And when you are, when you are a 3PL or distributors that will, that want to have new customers and you go and you say, listen, I have this tool, I will give you real-time information. I will give you transparency about how I will create the orders and how I optimize them. You will have access to real documents in real time in order for you to be able to invoice your own customers. I will share with you some impact-driven data to help you take the right decisions. So yeah, you're different from the competition. You step ahead of the competition, and this is what we are offering.

Yeah, okay. Uh, coming to your product again, it's a SaaS model, and if we understand, um, today companies have multiple softwares. No company runs just one software. So how easy, uh, it is for them to integrate with your product? Because integration is a challenge what we have been seeing over the years.

Integration is complex for SAP and Oracle because when you have on-premise software, but I mean, our software is full API access. So we have customers that have integrated with Oracle, SAP, and it's in both directions, you know, to send the orders when they are ready to be delivered and then to get the information to update the ERP or the WMS when the order is delivered.

Okay.

Yeah, so for us, on our side, it's very easy because it's only API. And so sometimes we help our customers. Usually they have an IT team to integrate, you know, to manage the WMS, and they know how to do it. The most important is to understand the problem is not the, the technicity in the integration, is what information you share at what moments. I think this is the most Yeah.

And is there any intelligence built? Because if I look at, you said, mentioned FarEye, FarEye actually, they have an AI model built for the last mile. So do you have it or do you plan to have that in your product as well?

Yeah, yeah. But the algorithm behind the planning automation is an AI metaheuristic algorithm that is running. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Now we have a very strong team. We have one of the best guys in AI and the route optimization in our team. We are very happy. with that. We already have this. But I tell you, the most important now I think is how to convince customers to take this risk of using your product in the longer-term basis. I think that's why, for example, they focus more on e-commerce and the courier company that have a lot of orders and they do like big enterprise contracts. This is not what we want to do. We want to have We are kind of impatient. We, and we want impatient customers that when they want to use a product, they can use it tomorrow and it's ready. So yeah, many different ways of looking at it. And the market is big. That's the good point. We can all succeed.

So Omar, you started in Morocco, you then expanded into Africa and the Middle East, and now you're spending more time in Southeast Asia. Why Southeast Asia? Why did you pick Indonesia as your key market to explore and promote your solutions? Yeah.

So just in the beginning, we were targeting, of course, Africa and Middle East, because when you're in Morocco, you try, I mean, it's a reflex, you try to reach the countries that are close to you and that are similar culturally. But we try to have a data-driven approach. We run some marketing campaigns all over the world, And we had meetings with companies all over the world and we saw that biggest potential was in, let's say, you have India, Middle East, and Pakistan, also Middle East and Southeast Asia. So we looked also at our competition, I mean, the competition as you call it, and we know that they are succeeding in those kinds of markets. So yeah, my co-founder is in Dubai right now targeting mostly Middle East and India, and I just It's new for us, you know, we decided this one month ago for me to come to Jakarta. It's a big country, so more than 250 million people. So lots of logistics issues. And when there are logistics issues, we can have value. So this is why we are here.

Yeah.

And it's a fast-growing economy, I think, with India and Indonesia. I mean, it's the 2 fastest-growing economies today.

Yeah.

Why have you not focused on developing your solution into Africa? Because it's also a big continent. There's a booming e-commerce and logistics market as well. There are for sure a number of distributors there. Africa is just not right for you?

In Africa, it's a big continent and it's very— it's like small countries in terms of population. You have Nigeria, you have South Africa and Kenya maybe. It's just data. We met a lot of companies there and maybe they were not ready yet to use the software. We think that Asia, we see, I mean, that Asia market is much more mature to use software today. And as a company, we want to find our right market. This is what data is telling us. This is what, yeah.

Okay.

But Africa can be a target after that, but it would be mostly Nigeria, you know, focus on one country or South Africa.

Okay, coming to your company again, let's talk about, uh, so when you started a company, did you use your own money or what we call bootstrap it, or did you raise funds? You went to a VC, and if you had a VC, what is your current funding stage?

Yeah, no, we started with our own, uh, earnings with my co-founder. We took it to— it's going to take us 6 months to sign first customer, so it took like, uh, Almost two years, so it was tough in the beginning. And hope we had some business angels that invested in us like fifty k dollar after like one year or something, and they helped us a lot. And then there was like a Moroccan program called two one two founders with the CDG Invest, and that was a game changer for us because they invested like three hundred fifty k dollar. And for us, it helped us hire people and also have more, I mean, yeah, have a strongest team and has the strongest product. So in 2021, as I told you, we were able to go from 2 to 20 customers and we joined Y Combinator program in Silicon Valley. So it was the 3rd time we applied. This time we were accepted. For us, it was a game changer because, you know, we're a startup in Morocco and there are not too many success stories in Morocco, unfortunately. We are trying to be that one that would inspire the others. And the fact when you go, you say to your team and to your customers, I'm Y Combinator, I'm backed by Y Combinator, then it saves a lot of time, you know, lots of talking, convincing them, motivating them. And yeah, after this Y Combinator, we met a lot of— we had this demo day where we met a lot of VCs. And we had a lot of refusals, lots of people saying, we love what you do, but we don't trust Morocco, it's a good market, and you didn't prove that you can do something elsewhere. And finally, we found the best The best, I think, VC, I mean, those are the ones who really try to understand the product, what was our difference and what value we were bringing to our customers. So we raised like $4 million. It was led by Partech Ventures. It's French. I mean, I think it's originally French, but they are everywhere in the world. So yeah. And we have also Flexport. Flexport is the biggest logistics startup in the world. And in 2 meetings, 15 minutes, they invested a small ticket. But it's also proof that, I mean, they believe in us and it's great to have them on board.

Yeah.

Just actually, you're not the first one who tells us that they've been invested by Flexport. I'm curious to actually understand why Flexport being as well, you know, a major supply chain tech company with all the funding, I think they raised what, close to a billion dollars, right? is investing into those small companies. What are they trying to do by investing into all these different startups? Are they trying to get information, intelligence about the competition? Or are they, you know, what is their main motive?

I mean, they started before. So they started in 2010 or 2012. It's digital freight forwarding for containers. They grow very fast. They have a very charismatic founder. No, they just said, we love what you do, guys. And also maybe they saw us like they were when they did YC 10 years ago. And so they saw our demo in the YC Demo Day and they liked us. We don't have that much interactions with them, but we keep following up and we share knowledge. You know, when you have a company of 1,000 people, it's very difficult to innovate and to to change models. So this is what Google is doing. It's easier to invest in lots of small startups, let's say, compared to what's— because it's a unicorn, and hope that one of those teams will find something and we'll be able to grow also in a different complementary market. I think, if I was them.

Yeah, but you know, there are a lot of cases of, you know that, Sandeep, of big software companies who've been investing into smaller startups just in order to kind of know what they are doing and eventually kill them, you know, when they become too big. So—

First, we are not competing with them and they don't know almost anything about what we are doing. We're just sharing with them small reports as we are sharing with all our investors. So no, no, it's not that type of competition.

Can we talk quickly about your revenue model and how do you actually charge your customers, Omar?

Yeah, sorry, just this. Yes, so it's a subscription model depending on the— so we have like 3 packages. We have a Start package, Scale, and Grow depending on number of features that— of the features. And we have 2 pricing models. There is one per vehicle. So it's mainly for the companies that own vehicles. They want to pay like— they want to control what they pay by vehicle. And then we have a pricing per order, per transport orders. So it will go from $0.20 per order to $0.80 depending on the features that you want.

Okay.

And coming to your company, I remember you mentioned there are 30 engineers. So how big is your company? Like how many people are there located globally or how is it?

We are almost 30. We are a full remote company. So We used to be 100% in Morocco, but now it's less than 50%. So we have people in the Canary Islands, Ukraine, have in Dubai, Kenya, Nigeria. We just hired someone in Pakistan. We are hiring someone in Indonesia and we are looking for people in India. We are looking to find the right people. We don't want to rush. So yeah, we are just moving all everything to this area here.

Yeah.

And that's cool.

Is it challenging for you to run a team remotely? I mean, obviously the pandemic has been helping and people got used to all those calls and be able to manage virtually teams. But what, you know, how challenging is it for you to manage a remote team?

I'm not sure I would have been able to do it without the some hires that we had, you know, we had a new CTO who joined the team who was, we knew that perfectly and he just showed us what to do. We needed tools, so we have a lot of tools that we use. We use Slack for internal chatting, ClickUp for all these tasks. And so it's tools, it's a culture and also like the mindset of people. Not everyone can work remotely and be efficient. So you need to hire the right people that believe in what you're doing and they're also passionate about what you're doing. So yeah, it's a combination of multi factors that make it successful or no. But today it's like obvious. You would have told me this like one year ago, I would say it's not possible. I need to see people in the office. Now I never go to the office. You know, I just want to go stay home and focus on what I'm doing.

So usually with your customers, they want you to be in front of you. So I think COVID changed all that.

When yeah, when they can. So when you're in the same area, they want to see you. Yeah, they want to sit with you and talk for many hours in meetings. But yeah, of course, it's also, it's a business of trust and relation. It's not just tech and software. And so this is why we are trying to hire people in the main countries where we are targeting, is to be closer to our customers, to be able to go sit with the logistics team, discuss about constraints. No, it's not like They, you know, to make the software work, you need lots of data that you need to set up the software. And some of the data is not written somewhere. You have to discuss with the team just to make them realize that when they optimize the planning, there are some constraints that are taken into account that are not written somewhere. So we are helping them. And it's true that it's easier when you are face to face with someone.

Okay. Do you get some pushback sometimes from customers when they realize that You actually don't have an office and they cannot come and visit and see your team?

No, we didn't have it. They asked, do you have someone in India or Indonesia? Of course, but pushback, I would not say pushback, it's questions that they asked. And yeah, but when they start using the product, then it's different. If you are in a sales mode where you try to sell with the demo and and the slides, of course they will ask a lot of questions. But if you put the product in their hands and they're able to use it and see it, then it's a different type of discussions that you have. So, okay, so what is the economic impact? How can I use it? How can I improve my logistics? And then you start getting very interesting discussions and they forget about where you are. And also some of them, they don't want to go and see you, you know, they have lots of meetings and they want to be sitting in their office. somewhere and, you know, be efficient.

Yeah. So, uh, coming to again, if you look at it, you had a dream and you went ahead, and dream is something which doesn't let you sleep. So what is your biggest challenge right now? And again, what keeps you awake? Like, what is your dream? What do you want to do further?

Well, the biggest challenge today is, um, so we used to be a startup where the founders were making almost all the decisions because we didn't have enough resources. It was tough. We didn't have like A players level, let's say, C-level players in the team. And then you have to switch from that to a company where you have people that are much greater than you and what they do, much better. And how to build a mindset and process and organization where everybody will be able to innovate and to propose sometimes stupid ideas. And because this is If you manage to build something like that, then it's just a matter of time and the company will succeed. And for me, it's the main challenge. So it's, of course, it's a change management where we are using some methodologies like Google using like OKR methodology. We are trying, we just, I just posted on LinkedIn the culture code of the company. And yeah, this is what I mean, it's challenging for me today. It's a good challenge.

As a founder and co-founder, I know a lot of times what you have seen is you will always have smart people in the team and sometimes your ideas may be challenged like in your organization. How do you handle that? Because I have seen a lot of people who take it personally and it doesn't go the right way. So how do you handle it? Because there will always be smarter people in your team.

But first, we try not to hire people that take things personally. But it's safe. So if you're able to do it 50% of the time, then okay, you solve 50% of the problem. And then also you have to show the example, you know, when I have an idea that is not good, I just say my idea was not good, but it's okay, it's how it works. And also there are some things also about YC, you know, I just forgot to tell you this, but I remember it was the the first meeting, you know, there was this mentor in front of like 400 startups and the guy, he just told those guys, I will tell you something, we know your secrets, we know your startup is broken, we know it's a big chaos inside and you change your mind every day. But he said, it's normal, that's what startups are. If it's not the case, it means that you're not innovating enough, you know. So I just sent a vocal note to the team, guys, it's normal what you are doing, we are on the right path, you know, guys, the right way. So yeah, it's learning, it's a process mentality. There is no one secret formula that can apply.

Okay, so how do you see your company, Friterium, or your solution in 3 to 5 years from now?

Yeah, from 3 to 5 years. What I learned, at least the most important thing I learned, is that we don't control those kinds of things. Of course, we want our company to succeed, to be unicorn, to be great, and to have the best culture code. So this is what you can control, is the values, is the values and what you want to do, what you don't want to do. As I told you, we want to be a software company for transport management. This is our identity. We will not change that. Or maybe we do another company, but no, this company is a transport management for Yeah, but then, I mean, the way you do it and the way you can achieve that depends on the market you have in front of you. It depends on your customers. And so this is what we are trying to do. We are trying to build the best product for the customers that want to work with us and then find this model to grow. So are we going to be a digital marketplace, you know, software for like Uber for freight? Maybe, or maybe we'll do in 4 or 5 years, we'll do warehouse management software, or maybe we don't know exactly, but we are here, we are in front of the market and the market decides what we do. And this is how we see it. Yeah.

Now we have an audience, which is a global audience, and a lot of you will have people who want to have a startup. So as a founder and a co-founder, so what is your advice to somebody who wants to find, to start a new company? Because a lot of people come with these questions. What, again, so if there is some 3 or 4 advices you want to give to the new founders, what will that be?

That already have a company that want to start a company? So if they don't have—

They want to start a company.

Yeah, first do it. Don't think too much, you know, don't think too much, just start, you know. This is when I started, I mean, I had this idea, first thing I called the developer, I said, we have this idea, let's start. So, and it's a process. First you need to do something that you love, or let's say, I think it's sometimes obvious, but yeah. Because it's tough, it takes time, a lot of focus, a lot of sacrifice. So choose something that you love and that you believe in, and then just do and try as many things as you can the fastest possible. Because we try to think, you know, we think we are smart and then we can have a great idea and build something for 6 months or 1 year and just, and then just put it in front of the market and it will succeed and it will become a unicorn. It's not the way it works, unfortunately. Fortunately, there are many things that the human brain cannot see, and the only way to see it is to iterate quickly. You know, you have an idea, do a sales pitch and put it in front of a customer and see his reaction. And act like the product was ready and then get data and then start building like this, iterating, if you want to succeed faster. Otherwise, it will take a lot of time and energy and may fail.

Okay. So as we—

This is my main advice.

Thanks, Omar. So as we end the interview, I want to ask you some quickfire questions. So here, here they are. Cats or dogs? Dogs. Window or aisle?

Window.

Can you please name a movie that you've seen recently that just comes to your mind that you like?

A Beautiful Mind with Russell Crowe. It's my favorite movie.

What is your favorite sandwich?

Chicken mayonnaise.

What's your most used app on your phone?

WhatsApp.

What is your favorite tool to build your company? You talked about it. Is it Slack or is it something else?

Slack. Slack changed my life, to be honest. It's— I can answer a bit longer, but it's Slack. It's easier because I can have access to everything that is said in all the meetings that are going on because everything is written. So I just open Slack and I know everything that's happening in the company. So it's great. Okay.

Describe the rest of your life in 5 words.

Traveler. Business traveler.

Okay. All right. Thank you very much, Omar, for being with us today. It was great understanding finally what Freeterium is doing.

I hope you understood this time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I understand.

Yeah, it's clear now.

It's a lot more clear. So we wish you all the best in your international expansion in the Middle East and across Asia as well. I think it's going to be very exciting. Thank you, Sandeep, also for being with us today.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you.

Thank you, Max.