Rendezvous with Ruchit Surati of Locanix

Are you dependent on your staff members or drivers for Vehicle Status and Fleet Information and often get incorrect information? Has that vehicle left the warehouse? Where exactly has the vehicle broken down? Who is driving this truck right now? Do you have a tough time getting answers to these questions? Locanix answers all these questions for you in the most convenient way you’d ever expect.

In the latest episode of D’Podcast, Locanix founder Ruchit Surati talks about his life and his journey to Locanix.

Ruchit Surati is a serial entrepreneur. Before founding Locanix, he founded two companies. He also worked as a Tech Lead in InteractCRM and now the founder of InteractCRM is co-founder of Locanix. That tells something about Ruchit, ain’t it?

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A few excerpts from the conversation:

Abhishek: What was the eureka moment? When did you realize that “OK! This is the pain point I am going to solve with Locanix.”

Ruchit: It all started back in 2005. I was doing my Masters in Computer Application and I started playing with GSM modems. That time the industry was called M2M (Machine to Machine) communications. I quickly realised that in future the software alone will not be enough. It will have to interact with the machines. So, that’s where the whole story started. We’re not going to just build a software but we are going to build a platform, which is the communication between the software and the hardware.

Kuntal: We heard that there were a few other startups you started before Locanix.

Ruchit: Yeah! there is a long history of how I started. In 2003, I founded a company called citybazaar.com, which was kind of Just Dial + Snapdeal model. You get your business listed and will go out and talk to people, people will refer to you, with the referral you get discounts. In 2008, I founded a company with one of my friends. We built a bluetooth-based kiosk which is deployed at the mobile stores. You would go and activate your bluetooth, download the SIS file (the app file) on your phone, use it for a while and then buy a scratch coupon from the offline store to activate the application. We sold a few hundred apps that time. But then the Apple app store came in and the whole iPhone revolution started.

Abhishek: Was there any person who you think that trusted you even before you could trust yourself?

Ruchit: Yes definitely! I would give big credit to my wife. She said “Go ahead, just do it. If you don’t do it right now then you would not be able to do in next 10 years.”

Abhishek: What is the difference you see between Eastern European Developers and Indian Developers?

Ruchit: The code quality. Amazing code quality. You read through the code and you can learn a few things.

Abhishek: What is that one thing, which you would like to tell prospective entrepreneurs?

Ruchit: I have one philosophy when I started and I still follow that. That’s the one reason actually why I have started this company. “Start small. Think big. Grow fast.”

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