Roadrunnr - Arpit Dave

In the era of entrepreneurship and startups, Awaaz, IIT Kharagpur sees it as its duty to share some of the successful startup stories related to IIT Kharagpur. Third in the series we present to you the story of Roadrunnr.

ROADRUNNR

Arpit Dave is one of the co-founders of the fastest growing B2B hyperlocal start-up Roadrunnr. After leaving Flipkart, Arpit along with some other Ex-Flipkart employees started Roadrunnr in February 2015. And now they intend to build the largest fleet of on-demand hyperlocal deliveries in the country. There was a time when Arpit himself had to deliver 50 orders to ensure the fulfillment, then came a time when Roadrunnr was growing by 20% per week. Let’s have a look at what he has to say about his entrepreneurial journey.

Q&A WITH ARPIT:

Awaaz: You had one more startup before Roadrunnr, called Exyle Explosives. What was that exactly? Why do you think it failed?

Arpit Dave: It was a new technology built by us, we made economic explosives for the mining industry, we also filed the patent. But there were two major reasons why it failed. First, It was a difficult market to launch in India, and, second, there were legal barriers as we were making explosives.

Awaaz: Even failed startups can teach a lot, what did you learn in the process?

Arpit Dave: You start understanding how things work. You are supposed to do things on your own; no one asks you to do that or no one pressurizes you. Thus what it needs and teaches is commitment. Plus, you learn how to tackle a problem, and since there are no deadlines, you have to complete things on time. So, yeah, a failed startup teaches a lot.

Awaaz: Which one do you feel or think is easier, starting something from college itself or doing a job for a few days then starting up? Because leaving your job must be a very difficult decision?

Arpit Dave: I think it's better to first get a job; you learn how things work in the real world, you understand the market, how to get tasks done by someone. Obviously, that is better, at least for me, it proved to be better.

Awaaz: We have heard that even you yourself have done some deliveries, and also spent all the money you had in your bank accounts till you raised funding.

Arpit Dave: Of course, you have to do all the dirty work. In the initial days, we ourselves delivered the orders and there was so much chaos that sometimes we delivered the food with a delay of 1-2 hours.

Awaaz: What pieces of advice would you give to college students who want to become entrepreneurs?

Arpit Dave: The most important thing is, whatever you do, whether it is academics or your society or anything, do it properly. Then what matters is how good you are at understanding the problem; I am doing a logistics startup, so, I have to understand Demand Supply properly and problems associated with it. Thus whatever you do, try to understand or observe the problems, do things in a professional way and keep on improving things.

Awaaz: Do you think that the society work that we do here in KGP can help us in the entrepreneurial journey?

Arpit Dave: Yes, We start at a level better than students of other colleges, and we learn how the hierarchy works. I think it helps a lot.