A group of millennials build up a system that connected over 3000 tons of cargos to departing trucks with empty backs, bring an addition income of over billions dong for carriers.
Despite ups and downs, the group of graduated students from National Economic University (Vietnam) pursue the dream of creating a connecting system between goods owners and departing trucks with empty backs. At the time being, the founding team turn down the opportunity billion-dong investment to keep the startup corporation under their control.
From the demand on connection between goods owners and departing trucks with empty backs
Being the winner of Philosophy Olympic at the university since freshman year and one of the best students in campus, Le Dinh Giap was given the name of “Giap the superman” by his peers in National Economic University (Vietnam). As a person with curiosity and creativity since the early age, the junior student had the dream of excellent academic base to be his own boss rather than to have an impressive resume for a decent job.
In 2015, the Ministry of Traffic and Transportation in Vietnam announced that about 70% of trucks had no cargo in their backs on their departing way, which meant that seven businessnewsbill out of ten inter-provincial trucks had empty backs on their departing way. Consequently, to make up for income loss, carriers had to require more amount of payment than that of two-way trucks. This fact was one of the reasons why logistics costs in Vietnam accounted for 25% of GDP.
Many people had the demand on finding departing trucks with empty backs in order to have low cost, but it was not easy to find one. Vietnam had 65,000 licensed transportation corporations, among those, about 16,000 professional transportation units. If both goods owners and carriers could be gathered in one system and provided self-updating and self-tracking, the costs would be much lower for both sides.
Being aware of the demand, Giap came up with the idea of building a website to connect goods owners to departing trucks with empty backs. The website was operated by direct fee after every successful transaction as well as advertisements with high session. The project named NetLoading later on claimed first prize of “Road to Entrepreneurship” Competition hosted by National Economic University (Vietnam). This was also the only project by students that was yet to launch product to be the runner-up of “National Startup” Competition hosted by Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI).
With the intention of joining some competitions, three members of the project left. Contrary to popular belief, Giap determined to make dream come true. He found another two partners also in their early 20s who saw the project’s potential. Le Thi Nga is major in Marketing, Le Dang Quynh has strengths in finance and design.
From a small amount of reward from competitions and money borrowed from family and friends, Giap and his friends had the capital of nearly 150 million dong to start the company. In April 2016, the first product version was launched.