Meet Ullaz Deliveries, a company trying to help truck drivers make extra cash on their return trips as they would normally go back empty.
Hi Lawrence, what’s your background and what has been your career?
Hello, my name is Mukhuyu Lawrence.
After My secondary education in Nyangori Boys High School, I joined JKUAT and pursued Financial Engineering. This sparked an interest in innovating financial products and systems that solved problems for the society.
However, upon completion of my degree, like many other graduates, I started doing academic writing to get my bills paid, churning out papers on behalf of other students for survival.
For 3 years, I dived into the American curriculum for my students. In the morning I would be attending a nursing class, in the evening I would be doing Math assignments and before sleeping, study for a psychology exam the next day.
As this happened, one thing stood out, most of the papers I wrote centered on industry disruptors in the American economy. This made me curious.
As I wrote those papers, I started studying the American Economy as well, its history, its current state and the future projections from the relevant stakeholders and they all projected one thing, that technology would disrupt everything, worldwide. As this epiphany dawned on me, I started asking myself, which industry in Kenya could benefit immensely if technology were incorporated.
After a keen observation and consideration, I settled on transport and delivery.
What are you working on currently and how did the idea come up?
I am currently working on a return Trucks platform called Ullaz that will cut transport and delivery costs by up to 50% off in its full potential.
Whenever transporters deliver products over a long distance, they always in most cases have to make a return trip empty.
To avoid this, we are linking trucks and lorries on their return journey to clients, brokers and other shippers who need a discounted transport solution.
The idea came up while I was running the very first version of Ullaz deliveries that was mainly for delivering simple household goods to customers. I found myself talking to a host of different stakeholders in the transport sector and trying to understand their core problems. This is where the current idea resulted from.
How have you been building the business?
The platform used minimal resources.
What was needed was a budget for the developers and APIs. However, on boarding stakeholders has been one of the major capital consuming endeavors. To function, the platform needs drivers, brokers, shippers, dispatchers and clients. Bringing all these stakeholders to one platform has been an uphill task.
How did you get your first customers/users?
Referrals.
Mostly customers tell their friends about your services and how you treated them.
The referrals have come in handy as more and more people keep telling the others about the service they received. Additionally, social media has played a huge role as it has worked as the main information center where potential clients can counter check or confirm our services before they can engage us directly.
Social media has been the foundation of our brand awareness, but the core has been service delivery as expected by the customers.
What are some challenges that you have faced and how did you overcome them?
The egg and chicken dilemma. It’s the number one problem I faced.
Stakeholders wait for other stakeholders to join before they can join, that leaves us in an endless loop of convincing stakeholders to join.
For example, drivers do not want to join the platform as there are no customers. Customers do not want to join as they are waiting for drivers. Drivers are waiting for brokers; brokers are waiting for drivers and so on.
Luckily, I found a way around it. The solution was patience, focus and being very hands on with the people that we serve, hands on customer service, talking to them directly has helped a lot.
Financially/user acquisition wise how is the product doing?
Every day, we handle at least 40 return Trucks matching. The number varies, but for each match we get up to 8% in commission for all successful match ups for return trucks.
In return we save the truck drivers up to 70% on costs they would have had to incur if they made that return journey empty.
What are some of the mistakes you made & some disadvantages of working on the product?
The number one mistake I made is hiring too early.
We got a team on board when clearly, we only needed a few people. We also let them go a little too slow. We live we learn.
Working on the product taught us that, we only need to focus on the CORE. Once you handle the CORE, the rest will follow and money will come. Focus on the CORE.
The main disadvantage of working on the product is that times are changing so fast. You snooze, you lose. You must maintain touch with your customers to know exactly what they need. The focus must be on the customer, they will inform you, what is your CORE.
What are some of your future plans?
My future plan is to create the ultimate online stage for the Bodaboda, tuk-tuks, pickups, lorries, trailers.
Somewhere you can easily access any transportation and get delivery done for your goods as conveniently and affordably as possible.
At the touch of the button, one will be able to access any delivery agent from anywhere in the world. You will only need to zoom in on the location of interest and you will see all the available transport and delivery agents, and call or inbox them.
If you had the chance to do things differently, what would you do?
I would do everything differently 😅. I would even dress different, change some of the ideas that I had initially. Change the music I listen to, the people I follow on social media etc, a lot of these things matter.
It is possible to be absolutely wrong, about everything when you are starting out. Kenyans say, “kwa ground ni different” which translates to “On the ground things are always different”.
However, this doesn’t mean that the vision is wrong, how you envision your way to the vision can be totally wrong, but how you get there is a different story. Even so, it is the mistakes that help us get there eventually.
Any recommendations in terms of who to follow, YouTube videos to watch, a useful website or books to read?
Read books when you can as much as you can. Some of my personal favorites are Robert Greene’s “Art of War” and Grant Cardone’s “The 10X Rule”.
As far as Twitter now X is concerned I’ve read a lot of content from Amerix, Andrew Tate, Elon Musk to mention a few who speak on matters bettering oneself mentally, physically and financially, how to build businesses that last.
I also follow and watch Andrew Kibe, all you need to do is listen between the lines, he’s also starting up his own streaming platform which is quite a motivator.
Observe and Listen is my main mantra.
Where can people go to know more about you and your work?
Check out our YouTube Ullaz Deliveries to find everything about Ullaz Deliveries and Return Trucks and lorries in Kenya.
We also post daily updates on TikTok, Facebook and Instagram [ullazdeliveries].
We are currently working on a new website but you can check out the old one here.
Getting personal, What does success look like to you as an individual and at what point would you say you have achieved said success?
Building something that has a positive impact on the lives of people in the world.
It can be the small convenience they enjoy, or overall positive impact on the environment due to the huge amount of fuel they save from using our return trucks.
To me, that small impact will be success.
Thank you.
Product Spotlight: Rafu
Once in a while I find a cool tool worth sharing and this one is pretty cool.
It started out as a tool that uses AI to help you caption and describe your images, for blogs, social and the likes, and has now become a full blown product that can help users redesign their rooms, interiors and buildings in seconds.
All you have to do is upload a photo, add your prompts (instructions as to the look that you would like) and generate a beautiful result.
Whether you are professional Architect, Interior Designer or just starting out, Rafu will definitely be worth your time.
The product is being built by Brian Kariuki.
Worth a read:
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Thank you for reading this far. Remember to tell your boss to tell their boss.
