The trucking industry isnât exactly regarded as one thatâs eagerly embracing technology â all that many working in this industry have ever known are endless phone calls between customers and co-workers, long email threads between more than five people at a time, and being left in the dark as to where the freight actually is.
Rose Rocket is trying to change that by âautomating everything â except for the truck,â according to Justin Hein, co-founder of the company. Rose Rocket is developing an end-to-end platform targeting smaller, less-than-truckload (LTL) carriers. Through Rose Rocket, companies can log pickups and deliveries in real time, send notifications to customers about the status of their delivery, and communicate directly with customers.
âItâs humbling to have a failure under your belt, and being able to take time off and say, âwhere did I not listen, where did I go wrong.â” – Justin Hein, co-founder of Rose Rocket
Itâs a stark contrast to what trucking companies are doing now; Hein said that many are still working with software built 25 years ago. But he also says that the industry couldnât really be disrupted until now. âThe industry is not as fast moving as others for sure, but until now, we hadnât gotten to the point where technology broke through certain barriers and all customers now have computers, all drivers have smartphones, and everybody at the trucking office has an internet-connected device,â said Hein. âWe built the solution from the ground up here in 2016, and weâve taken advantage of technology.â
The Toronto-based company moved to Silicon Valley for Y Combinatorâs summer 2016 cohort, which recently came to an end, with Rose Rocket walking away with some funding from the incubator. While Hein declined to say how much they raised, Y Combinator invests $120,000 in startups twice a year.
The team is planning on moving back home to Toronto in the near future, but the team is staying put in the Valley for now, to see how the business evolves as the company pursues pilot projects over the summer. Hein jokes that he feels like heâs on the set of Silicon Valley with the founders all sharing a house together â complete with a pool â working away on their product.
âItâs been one of the most interesting and fun summers of my entire life, definitely the most pressure, and it’s been some of the most memorable moments of my professional career,â said Hein. Itâs an especially true statement for him and his team, who failed with their first startup, FR8nex, which targeted shippers managing trucking companies. That experience taught them that they should move towards helping trucking companies themselves.
âThe failure was essential. Something has to be different about you to say âIâm going to create something else that no one has created, and I think itâs a good idea’ â when everyone else is telling you that itâs a bad idea. Inherently, you have to have a different worldview,â said Hein, who added that this also means you might not listen to the right people or customers at first.
âItâs humbling to have a failure under your belt, and being able to take time off and say, âwhere did I not listen, where did I go wrong.â Then you get to the second startup and youâre just so much farther ahead,â said Hein. âAll startups are a struggle, but it was a nice counterpoint to find that breakthrough and find that youâre solving a real problem.â
Photo via The Macro