Inspiration can strike anywhere and due to this inspiration, people end up doing wonderful deeds like starting a new business. Similar is the story of KTM Couriers. KTM Couriers is one of the recent innovative businesses to have entered the commercial sector in Nepal. This business takes a new approach to the already existing delivery concept in Kathmandu. KTM Couriers is a logistics company that specializes in the delivery and pick up of documents, letters, goods, cash, bill payment and such. The founders, Sajan Man Singh Suwal and Smriti Suwal, conjured up the idea of this business after seeing similar bike-messaging delivery businesses in New York and Portland. They thought that a similar business could prosper in Nepal as well considering how even local vegetables, drinking water jars and gas get transported through means of cycles and bikes and they invested wisely. Not only was it a good business idea but it was also a means of providing employment opportunities to youths who would have otherwise gone to Dubai or Qatar.
Initially established in 2012, KTM Couriers started off with mere 4 staff and only a handful of clients including family friends but now, over the past three years, they have over 15 staff and over 25 clients who approach them for various work. Although, originally they only dealt with letters, documents, they now also deliver wedding invitations, clothes and do bill payments. When they first started, they only received around 10 orders per day but in today’s context, the number of orders has increased exponentially to around 70 per day. Erisha Suwal, the strategic adviser, has been there since the very beginning and claims that she’s very proud of how far they have come. As someone who has witnessed the journey thoroughly, she mentions that they’ve grown a lot over the years, both as a business and individually. One of the staff who started off as a runner, someone who delivers the goods, now manages the routes and monitors the flow of packages. They’ve also witnessed growth in their client companies like threadbare as by looking after their logistics, the client companies are free to improvise and hone other aspects. This is exactly the kind of impact and growth KTM Couriers wanted to elicit.
When asked about the hiccups along the way, Erisha mentioned how immediately after the earthquake, their clients got reduced by half and many staffs quit. Their business was barely making any profit; however, in the recent months, they’ve picked up wonderfully and even staff who had quit earlier joined again. And now with around 70 orders per day, everyone at KTM Couriers is kept engaged whether it be the runners or the dispatchers or the managers. On busy days like these, Erisha mentions how they feel like they’re doing the right thing and days like these act as incentives to keep persevering and keep moving forward. So on days of frustration, they just try to remember that there is a lot of scope for a business like this in Nepal and later on, it will definitely flourish as imagined.
They definitely have high hopes for the future and although currently, their services are only limited to Kathmandu, they hope to expand to other cities. As a business that also promotes Green Nepal by using bicycle for their deliveries and utilizing recycled Nepali paper for their receipts, they also hope to be able to provide green solutions to all their services.
It is commendable how far KTM Couriers has come ever since it’s commencement in 2012. Its journey has been exemplary in the sense that as long as your ideas are innovative and you believe in them, you will succeed. To sum up their journey over the years in one sentence, Erisha would say that it has been a true rollercoaster ride.
Entrepreneur Strories 