What are we building and why are we building it from Odisha?

The last 2 months were crazy setting up my new venture MotorFloor. Some of you know that after I sold my past venture Vidooly, I was on a break to figure out what to do next. The question was whether to stay with content or jump into a new problem/category that is un-sexy, unorganized, not digitized, and solve it for a larger audience at scale. While there are other themes that investors often talk about, I believe those are cyclical in nature. I wanted to get into something that is structural, long-term, and disruptive in nature and has the potential to become a large size company in the coming years.

Why build in the commercial vehicle space?

As per SIAM, the overall Commercial Vehicles sales increased from 7,16,566 to 9,62,468 units in FY22-23. Sales of Medium and Heavy Commercial Vehicles increased from 2,40,577 to 3,59,003 units and Light Commercial Vehicles increased from 4,75,989 to 6,03,465 units, in FY-2022-23, compared to the previous year. Sales of Three Wheelers increased from 2,61,385 to 4,88,768 units.

In FY23, commercial vehicles were produced in India, valued at INR 1.7 Lakh Crore, all through the offline dealer distribution network. Our idea is to build an online first tech-enabled platform for brand new commercial vehicles and help?our customers choose the right set of vehicles as per their business needs and guide them through the end-to-end buying process.

By 2030, we aim to enable the digitization of 10% of the offline commercial vehicle market in India.

What drives the growth of this sector in India?

• Improved road connectivity throughout the nation
• Increased requirement for last-mile transportation from the e-commerce segment
• Preference for fuel-efficient and alternative fuel vehicles
• Major transformations in the vehicle safety standards and emission norms
• Introduction of scrappage policy
• Increased infrastructure spending by the Government

Why Starting up in Odisha?

• Odisha stands as the 4th cleanest state in India in the Swachh Survekshan 2023 ranking.
• Odisha has been categorized as 'Top Performer' state in the 4th edition of the State Startup Ranking conducted by DPIIT.
• Odisha's?capital city?Bhubaneswar?ranked 2nd position in the?Ease of Living Index?2020 in 'Population Less than Million' category.
• Odisha's Per Capita Income at present (2022-23) is Rs 150,676 in current price as against All India average PCI of Rs 170,620 (current price).
• Odisha Ranked 18th in the NITI AAYOG’s Health Index performance report 2019 Bhubaneswar.
• Bhubaneswar has emerged as an education hub in eastern India with prestigious institutes like AIIMS, IIT, NISER, NIFT, XIMB, KIIT, Birla Global University, Sri Sri University?etc.

Apart from all these parameters, the state has a low cost of living, less traffic, and affordable talent compared to other big cities in India.

While sourcing tech and skilled talent remains a significant challenge in many small towns across India, the advent of a distributed hybrid work culture has mitigated this issue. By strategically designing systems and leveraging appropriate digital tools, this challenge no longer poses a significant obstacle.

It's been two months, our team has grown to 15+ members now, we have moved into a new office space in Infocity Patia and covering 100+ major PIN codes in India. Most importantly, a few leading OEMs have chosen MotorFloor as their trusted online dealer partner for their business expansion across major cities in India.

What comes next?

1. Expand our team across Sales, Customer Service, and Partnership.
2. Reaching more PIN codes and expanding our human-assisted touch-points across major rural towns of India.
3. Onboarding banks and NBFCs for vehicle financing

If you are someone who believes in our vision and the industry we operate in, would like you to join us on our journey, please don't hesitate to reach out. We would love to chat with you.