Webnak

What did it do?

Webnak was a digital freight platform set up in 2014 within Turkey's Aslanoba Group. Corporate firms and small businesses that needed goods moved posted their loads on the system like listings, and lorry drivers bid for them through a mobile app. The aim was to cut out middlemen and, with GPS tracking, make haulage faster, safer and cheaper.

Why did it shut down?

Hasan Aslanoba explained the closure in a single sentence: product-market fit had not been achieved. Over four years the platform brokered more than 70,000 shipments and ended 2017 with a turnover of TL 30 million, but this volume never turned into a sustainable business. At launch, the targets had been a 5 per cent market share and annual revenue of TL 90 million within five years. The company wound down its operations without making an official statement on its website. Since no detailed reasons were given, it can only be suggested, as an interpretation, that creating a lasting digital habit in a fragmented, field-based haulage market is hard.

The story

During the 23 years he ran Erikli, the Turkish bottled water company, Hasan Aslanoba ran into the same problem again and again: finding a lorry to carry the product on time and at a reasonable price. One of Turkey's most active angel investors in internet start-ups, Aslanoba decided in 2014 to solve this problem with a venture of his own. Webnak was born within the Aslanoba Group as a platform that would connect shippers directly with lorry drivers.

The model was simple. Firms posted their haulage needs on the system like listings, drivers bid through a mobile app, and the job was tracked by GPS. In an interview with Metal Dünyası, Aslanoba said the heavy haulage market was worth around TL 60 billion a year and that about 768,000 lorries were operating in Turkey. The company started out with 20 people working in the field across five regions and 7 at head office. The target was a 5 per cent market share and annual revenue of TL 90 million within five years.

Webnak grew for a while. According to UTİKAD, the Turkish logistics association, the platform brokered more than 70,000 shipments over its four-year life, and according to the trade outlet Kargo Haber it ended 2017 with a turnover of TL 30 million. But the numbers fell short of the targets and the business model never bedded in.

In November 2018 Aslanoba summed up his decision briefly to egirişim: "We could not achieve product-market fit." The platform ceased operations on 31 December 2018. No official announcement was made on the company's website; the customer message reported by UTİKAD said completed shipments would be paid for and invoices had to be submitted by 2 January 2019. egirişim recorded Webnak as the last start-up to close in 2018.

Webnak's story shows that knowing an industry's problem inside out is not enough to find the product that solves it. Aslanoba understood the problem from the inside and had capital and a network. Even so, in a fragmented market bound by its habits, striking a balance that would keep both carriers and shippers on the platform at the same time proved impossible.

Lessons for founders

• Turnover growth is not product-market fit; measure repeat, profitable usage separately.
• Growing with a field team in fragmented, traditional industries is expensive; test your unit economics early.
• Announcing a closure openly protects the trust you have built with customers and carriers.

Sources

1. Hasan Aslanoba's investment Webnak is closing (egirişim, 2018-11-26)
2. Aslanoba's venture Webnak ceased operations on the last day of 2018 (egirişim, 2019-01-02)
3. Digital freight platform Webnak ceases operations (Kargo Haber, 2019-01-07)
4. Is Webnak shutting down? (UTİKAD, 2018-12-24)
5. How was the Webnak idea born? Hasan Aslanoba tells us about Webnak (Metal Dünyası, 2014-11-01)

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