Listen to this articleBelow is our recent interview with Roberto Picon, CEO and Co-Founder of Mundango.
Q: Mudango was founded in 2017, could you tell us Mudango story?
A: Well, we’re not a typical startup… We started in a niche market, which is moving services, and bootstrapped to build the initial technology. During the early period, we spent a lot of time doing things that didn’t scale, like talking to every customer by phone, going to their homes to measure inventory, chatting with truck owners, and moving teams to understand how their business worked and what could make a moving service cheap or expensive, easy to execute or complicated, etc. It was a period of great learning. We then took all these learnings and built an amazing product that converts really well, is fully automated and that compared to other startups in this space, even from the US or Europe, is positioned at the top.
Then, as the company scaled, our users started asking for more logistic-related services. You could have used Mudango as an individual to move a few things, and then come back asking for help as an SME manager. That’s when we realized that to give the best possible service at the lowest possible cost, it was fundamental to expand into other verticals including self-storage, last-mile delivery of bulky items, and more. In logistics, everything is connected, and we realized that as you add more verticals into your offering, you help your customers as a one-stop-shop that meets all their logistic needs. This vision increased our TAM by 5x or more, and we realized that what we had done in moving services helped us to build a really great team with a hands-on culture and with top sales and engineering talent. So now we have all the infrastructure to execute on this ambitious vision of revolutionizing logistics in Latin America. Moving stuff in Latam is hard, stressful, and often quite expensive, and we are here to help 😉
Q: We heard that moving with Mudango has never been easier. Can you give us more insights in your services?
A: Our Moving Services vertical operates really well. It is already profitable and every time we open a new city we see that the technology and our business processes work great, convert great and give users an amazing experience. We actually have 4.9 out of 5 stars in Google reviews on every market we currently operate. So it is very exciting to see that such a stressful and complicated event like moving, can be transformed into a totally different experience. For us, control is key to give our users a good solution in a consistent manner. This is why we developed Mudango as an end-to-end marketplace. We combine an array of user-friendly tech products (charming bots and cool algorithms), with a network of trusted and trained truck owners, moving companies, and storage facilities. This allows users to seamlessly book, coordinate via an online dashboard and execute a move in an easy, 100% online, and stress-free way. We are a consumer brand that is trusted by users in a really important life event.
Q: Mudango currently operates in Chile, Colombia, and Mexico, but when can we expect Mudango in other countries?
A: Our next launch will be in Brazil, hopefully by the end of this year. After that, we are looking at Spain and the US.
Q: You’ve recently raised $1.4 Million in Seed funding; can you tell us something more?
A: Yes, the round was led by Latam VC firm Genesis Ventures and backed by FEN Ventures and Kalei. With this round, we will accelerate our growth in Mexico – our latest new market – expand into Brazil, and accelerate the adoption of new verticals including international moves and logistics for international commerce. It is really exciting to transition from our previous bootstrapping model into a more aggressive one with a greater vision of improving logistics as a whole in the entire region of Latin America.
Q: What can we expect from you later in 2021? What are your plans?
A: We want to connect the entire region of Latin America in an intuitive, easy, and user-friendly way, and most importantly, with cheap and affordable prices. Latam is this huge region, with twice the population of the US, and with people living in very dense cities like Santiago, Sao Paulo or Mexico City. Logistics in the region represents an amazing opportunity for entrepreneurs and throughout the next 5 to 10 years we are going to see a complete revolution in this space. We are excited to be playing a role in this revolution, excited about the work we’ve done so far, and even more excited about what is ahead of us.
