Our first year: learnings and thoughts

This adventure started officially in May 2019, a bit earlier really, but it feels like a lot of time ago. 

At the beginning everything was quite easy and funny: contacting potential clients, experienced people in the logistics sector, the development of the initial MVP… and most of the feedback and results were really positive, we had to run in order to officially create the company to start a couple of projects and sign its contracts.

We have always been conscious that a company creation without pain is not possible, but at the beginning everything was so natural and easy, and at some point we believed that maybe it was not always painful, maybe we could succeed without that pain. Mistake.

Things are never that easy. We had a clear idea in mind: we wanted to go to the market with our own resources, there was no need to look for investment because we could sell and implement, so we decided to put all the efforts on clients acquisition and product development. From my point of view, that was a good decision, but due to the complexity of the product and the targeted clients, that has been a big challenge and we have worked extremely hard under a lot of pressure. We wanted to have full control of the different areas of the company before scaling the team, and that pain has also been an extraordinary learning process in order to establish and produce the quality in all areas that we had in mind. Fortunately, hard work is not something that scares us and happy clients compensate for it. 

Another pain point is the sales cycle, we knew it could take long sometimes, but in some cases it’s even longer than we expected (If your company is at this stage right now, go ahead and start getting value from us, no need to delay it!). Also, being a start-up is not always seen as an advantage because for some companies it looks like you want to test an unfinished product with them, although the product works perfectly and makes what it is expected to do.

We are proud because we are working with big companies, adding value to them and slowly positioning Hedyla in the market as a sophisticated Artificial Intelligence platform for Logistics. Companies like Trie Logistics, Fedefarma, Vilaviniteca, Mahou – San Miguel, DIA, Campofrío and other ones we can’t reveal yet that have trusted. That’s really exciting and motivating. And last, but not least, a special mention for Taisa Logistics and the growing relationship with them.

We will avoid personal mentions, but we have had, and hope to continue having, the privilege to work and collaborate with really great people, that provide extremely valuable feedback, that we learn from everyday and that see us as partners, not just a provider. Thank you, sincerely.

Finally, big thanks to our families (in my case Vero and Emma), that fed us and gave us everything we needed to survive during long periods of hard dedication to the company.

We are here to stay and there are many great things to come, some of them already in process and that will make a big difference, stay tuned!