Pranshu Gupta: Ensuring a Safe Ride

Until the first ‘production’ automobile saw the light of the day in 1885, little did we know about the impact of this invention. From comfort to convenience and redefining the concept of luxury, today’s automobile industry undoubtedly stands as one of the biggest inventions of mankind. While technology continues to play a dominant role in modernizing the industry, we still cannot guarantee to avoid mishaps or meeting unforeseen emergencies.

An Indian startup that has successfully managed to stand amongst its peers in the industry is Trak N Tell. Offering sophisticated vehicle telematics solutions in the area of Tracking, Safety, and Infotainment, this company is committed to make every drive a safe and smarter drive.

This story highlights the inspiring journey of an ambitious entrepreneur – Pranshu Gupta, the Founder and CEO of Trak N Tell alongside putting the spotlight on the exclusive offerings from the company.

A Multifaceted Story of Excellence 

Apart from being a passionate automobile enthusiast,  Pranshu loves to fly airplanes and wishes to renew his pilot license in the not too distant future. Watching movies, listening to music, and off-roading are some of the pass-time activities that he loves to indulge in when he is not working. A software engineer by training with a passion for automobiles, Pranshu combines his deep knowledge of both fields to create innovative products.

Pranshu completed his B.Sc in Computer Engineering from the University of Florida in 1995. His professional career began with Exxon Exploration Company, the world’s largest publicly traded Oil and Gas enterprise as a Systems Analyst. In 1997, he joined Yahoo Inc. as a senior technical executive and played a vital role in transforming the company into one of the world’s biggest tech organizations.

A New Journey

2003 was the year that made the difference as Pranshu entered the entrepreneurial world with Pran Enterprises – an outsourcing company dedicated to providing web development services. Later in 2007, he founded Bits N Bytes Soft Private Limited and in 2009, he made a foray into the emerging vehicle intelligence arena with his entrepreneurial brain-child, Trak N Tell.

With over 15+ years’ experience of converting groundbreaking ideas into customer-centric products and later venturing into IoT startups, Pranshu has evolved as a creative, problem-solving technologist and entrepreneur. With a vision to provide best-in-class embedded intelligence solutions to OEMs, he has garnered the expertise that is helping him to set the right trajectory of growth.

He got his first OEM customer in 2013 and successfully raised his first round of funding within a year, followed by the second round in 2015-16. Furthermore, Pranshu also hopes to attain a large majority of Indian vehicle owners as customers at Trak N Tell in the next five years.

Pranshu feels that his employees are the most valuable aspects of his company’s growth. Additionally, with the seasoned professionals working with him since its inception, Trak N Tell is a prime example of loyalty and the one that treats every employee as an integral part of the company. Headquartered in Gurugram, today it has a workforce of 120 professionals.

Trak N Tell is now trusted by car owners across the length and breadth of India, as well as some foreign regions. These regions include countries like Nigeria, Kenya, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Colombia, USA and Canada.

The Cornerstones

Pranshu is thankful for having a supportive family that stands firm and shares the pressure of managing the startup. It also acts as a major motivation for him as ideas keep pouring in at home.  His daughter pitches in with suggestions, performs testing, and even wrote a list of must-have features and recommended other additional features for ‘IntelliPlay Xtreme’ – a smart connected infotainment product. His mom recently experienced the product in his car and wants to upgrade the factory-fitted version in their car with IntelliPlay Xtreme.

Talking about the factor that drives him to enhance his performance, Pranshu feels that working in a startup is like working in a high-energy environment. He adds, “The sheer pleasure of seeing a working POC of what started as a half-baked idea is like a shot of pure adrenaline. This kick is what drives us to build something new.” 

Emphasizing on the fact that saving a few dollars is most definitely not worth delaying the launch of the product, spending time on looking for better cost-effective solutions is not the ideal way. He further elaborates that the decision-making process is faster in a startup, as often on-spot decisions are taken after evaluating the pros and cons with the core management team.

Obstacles On the Way

Speaking about the challenges, Pranshu candidly admits that going as per statistics, nine out of ten startups fail – a dark and scary reality. Explaining the scenario he adds, “perseverance is the biggest challenge in running a startup.” An entrepreneur has to have complete faith in the product or service and sustain the fight of existence until the end. At any point in time, if an entrepreneur succumbs to pressure or negative thoughts, its the beginning of the end of the journey.

On a concluding note, decoding the present-day tech market, Pranshu feels that AI and “smart” are overly used and abused words as everybody is using AI and building something smart. He feels “investors and customers are getting to the point where they start rolling their eyes when they hear these buzz words.”

For more info about the innovative products, click here