Flinke's Blog #1

Hey everyone 👋🏻

This is the first series of our monthly blog where I will be sharing my journey and its ups and downs with you. As this is our first series, I will start off with some background introduction about myself, how this all started, and most importantly what Flinke is all about. 

Flinke

A cloud-based end-to-end logistics platform founded by Waleed Lattouf

I joined the Enterprise Bath Entrepreneurship Programme in my final year of University (Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering with Manufacturing and Management) to explore what entrepreneurship is. My drive to join the program was mainly fuelled by a supply chain and logistics problem that I have been noticing in our family business over the years. With COVID-19 and Brexit, the supply chain disruption has exacerbated and many businesses failed to meet demand. At that point, I realised that the problems in our family business are problems thousands of other businesses around the world face. Upon further research, I have validated these problems and came up with a novel and disruptive idea in the Supply Chain Industry– no pun intended. 

After receiving the Alumni Innovation Award in April 2021, I have taken a few months off to cool down and prepare myself for my next adventure after university! Fast forward to September where Flinke was born.

Flinke is a cloud-based end to end logistics platform that allows SMEs to book and manage their cargo, streamline communication with all stakeholders involved in the process, including Freight Carriers, Custom Clearance, Suppliers and Fulfilment Warehouses, and reduce the last-mile delivery through sustainable micro fulfilment to meet increasing demands of customers. Yes, that’s right – all in one platform. 

After completing extensive research about the industry and laying out the plan for the next few months, it was time to get started with the real work! The image below outlines the plan I will be following or at least try to follow. When starting a business, I have figured that it's really difficult to plan ahead but continuous hustling is key to cross the desert and win the race.

I will be referring to this diagram in my monthly blogs to keep you up to date with my progress. To kick things off I started with the Customer – Problem stage in September. I have focused on undergoing extensive research to understand more about the market, the competition, and how SMEs currently do their logistics. Once I have finished the research, written the business plan and the pitch deck, it was time to move to the second stage which was Surveys & Interviews. Based on the research, I have created a survey and shared it with SMEs to hear from them firsthand insights about their problems and understand which of these problems must be solved first i.e. what to include in the MVP. After analysing the data from surveys, I am now about to start with the interviews with selected SMEs who I identified as early evangelists to use the platform. With that, I have created a community that is closely following the progress of the platform. This way I have a crowd that will keep me on my feet and a way to prove traction when asked by investors.

With December being one of the busiest times for eCommerce retailers, it might be slightly difficult to get these interviews done before the holidays and might need to postpone some to January. That’s it from me and I’ll see you in a month’s time – just before Christmas . Speaking of Christmas, do not wait for last minute online gift shopping this year as there is still some supply chains and logistics disruption in place due to COVID-19.

Waleed’s dedicated Entrepreneur in Residence at the SETsquared Bath Innovation Centre, Pete Keevill said:

I've been working with Waleed to help him develop his ideas to bring innovation into online shop supply chain management and order fulfilment. This is an enormous global industry in the US$ hundreds of billions annually and, unsurprisingly, dominated by large players. Waleed's intent is to deliver new capabilities to innovative young online shop businesses with the potential to grow their brand and revenue so that they can compete more effectively through cost savings and better customer service. I'm pleased with the progress of our conversations that are zeroing in on some interesting and disruptive capabilities to bring to this established market so now we are moving on to consider more detailed business planning and outlining the strategy for fund-raising.

If you are looking to start your own business straight after University and need some advice, feel free to contact Waleed if you have any questions or would like to hear more about his experience. 

You can visit Flinke’s website here.