Yalla, its easy to transport those crates

When Elie El Tom spent one full day to figure out how to transport a crate from one place to another, he had to deal with very basic requirements; looking for a pickup truck, negotiating the cost, driving in front of the truck to the pickup location and driving to the drop-off location. The whole process of delivering goods left him so frustrated that he vowed to simplify the process and there was Yalla Pickup.
Elie, founder and CEO of Yalla Pickup, said: "A total waste of time was something that made me introspect. Then one day I was on my way home when I saw pickup trucks on the outskirts of Motor City. The contact mobile numbers printed on the trucks were so big that it irked my eyes. I thought since Dubai's vision is to be a smart city so why don't I contribute to this vision by finding a smart way to connect people who have trucks with people who need one."
Yalla Pickup came into being in the UAE in 2017, the app allows a smartphone - Android or iOS - or web user to transport large-sized valuable goods by booking the nearest truck from the convenience of their office or home. Yalla Pickup has now launched the next phase of its successful app to bring unparalleled moving and transport solutions to businesses in three distinct categories - last mile delivery, delivery management system and survey management system.
Dubai Silicon Oasis and The Box are the share holders of this startup venture and the company raised $355k at the seed funding stage. The company plans to raise half a million dollar in bridge funding this year.
Zag Asghar, chief executive officer, Accelerate-Global, a strategic business consultancy based in Dubai, said: "We at Accelerate-Global come across many budding entrepreneurial companies looking to make an impact on the market and seeking to ensure that they have a strategic way forward with a well-developed plan and a clear execution roadmap, which we help them to build. However, in terms of our own investment in such companies, we are very selective about which ones we choose.
"Yalla Pickup is one such company we have selected for our portfolio because we see this not just as the 'Uber of pickup trucks', but the completeness of services the company provides that span the spectrum from last-mile delivery to resource management take this company into a unique position against it nearest competitors and have raised the barriers to entry. We see Yalla Pickup as an upcoming star over the next few years and that is why we have made a strategic investment in this company."
Right from conceiving the idea to manifesting it in the company, the venture did witness challenges.
"The main challenge is educating drivers and getting them aligned with our strategy of on-time, safe, reliable and transparent pickup truck and moving services," said Elie.
So why was Dubai the preferred business destination? Elie said: "Dubai helps to set up and grow your business. The exposure you get in Dubai is what has made it the hub for startups. All eyes are on you."
He said: "Our strategic alliance with The Box has added another feather in our cap as a unique startup. From offering services to moving companies, individuals and businesses we are now expanding towards delivery management, on-spot delivery and survey management. This will not only give us an edge but propel us as a one-stop solution for individual and commercial goods transportation in the UAE. Through our services we hope to build a fast and secure goods transportation system that not only provides timely service but also a seamless experience."
"Being an app-based system, the convenience is unparalleled. By creating an account on our app, our customers can easily hire required services. We have often seen managing a fleet as being extremely tedious and expensive for our clients and we hope to provide relief through our new services. Our aim is to increase our fleet to 500 pickup trucks across the UAE by the end of 2018 and sign up 300 businesses this year. We have seen a month-on-month revenue increase of 40 per cent since our launch in 2016," Elie added.
Yalla's last-mile delivery is effectively tailored for businesses that require transportation services but do not own a fleet. The service caters to requirements that are current and immediate. It particularly benefits stores or online shopping portals that provide heavy products or items like furniture that need to be transported to a customer's home. A business like this does not require a full-fledged fleet system on a regular basis and instead of increasing the operational cost by adding vehicles to the company's inventory. Yalla Pickup's last-mile delivery system provides the ease of booking transport for service fulfillment without the hassle of owning a transport vehicle for delivery purpose.
The delivery management system is tailored for businesses that have their own fleet and for those that outsource their fleet to other vendors. The system allows businesses to have full visibility of their existing and or hired fleet; allowing companies to assign tasks to the drivers via the web portal and monitor the activities of the drivers that are on duty, understand who have accepted the job, when was the job started, loading, arrival and offloading time. The fleet management system saves time and hassle of resource management for organisations that own large or small fleets.
The survey management system allows moving companies full visibility on their surveyors. The moving companies can assign a survey to a nearby surveyor and monitor arrival time of the surveyor via the portal to ensure that the surveyor has reached the site at the client's selected time.
Yalla Pickup currently has services in the UAE only with plans to expand into Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain between 2019 and 2021. The Box currently operates in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Beirut.
Ahmer Khan, operations manager, Yalla Pickup, said: "I believe in the values of our company which offers on-time, safe, transparent and reliable pickup truck and moving services. Fact is that we are offering a total digital transformation to all businesses that require transportation and I take pride in contributing to this." - sandhya@khaleejtimes.com