Sarthak Elwadhi - Rethinking India’s Trucking Backbone

Leaders at a Glance

Professional journey of Sarthak Elawadhi is defined by a commitment to modernising India's fragmented trucking sector through a blend of global academic insights and deep "on-the-ground" practical research.

Name: Sarthak Elawadhi
Designation: Co-Founder
Company: TrucksUp Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
Industry: Truck Transportation
Country: India

Sarthak Elwadhi - Rethinking India’s Trucking Backbone

In India’s trucking ecosystem, inefficiency is rarely about movement; it is about what happens between decisions. Conversations replace systems, trust is negotiated rather than assumed, and access to the right information often arrives too late to matter. Spend enough time on the ground, and this pattern becomes impossible to ignore.

That is exactly where Sarthak Elwadhi’s journey begins to take shape. Early exposure to structured logistics environments in Australia, followed by hands-on involvement in his family’s business back in India, gave him a front-row view of this gap, not as an outsider, but as someone operating within it. Building TrucksUp Solutions Pvt. Ltd. emerged as a response to that lived reality, with a clear focus on bringing visibility and access into everyday trucking decisions.

During an exclusive conversation with The Portfolio Magazine, he shares how these observations evolved into a platform grounded in real-world need.

What inspired you to build TrucksUp from your early career experiences?

Exposure often shapes perspective more than intent, and for me, that shift happened across two very different ecosystems. While studying and working in Australia, I was part of a logistics environment where efficiency, structure, and access to information were seamlessly embedded into everyday operations. At that stage, it felt routine, almost expected.

Returning to India introduced a completely different reality. Being on the ground, working within my family’s logistics business, and observing operations closely brought forward a system that relied heavily on manual processes, where information was fragmented and often delayed. The gap was not subtle, it was constant and visible in everyday decision-making.

Over time, what began as a comparison evolved into a direction. TrucksUp was built out of that lived contrast, shaped by the need to bring visibility and structure into a system that had long operated without it.

What ground-level insights from truck operators shaped your business model?

India, with its diversity and scale, offers insights that are rarely visible from a distance, and the trucking ecosystem reflects that complexity in its most raw form. Truck operators, especially small fleet owners, operate at the very core of this system, navigating geography, language, and unpredictable conditions every single day.

When I began interacting with them more closely, one thing became immediately clear. These were not individuals lacking understanding of their business. On the contrary, they were deeply aware of their financial realities, from rising EMIs and tight margins to the challenge of low asset utilisation, where trucks often run for only half the month.

The constraint was not capability, but access. Decisions were being made with limited and delayed information. Recognising this shifted the entire approach. TrucksUp was not built to change behaviour, but to unlock visibility, because once the right information is available, the ecosystem already knows how to respond.

Having experienced different cultures, what fundamental difference defines global versus Indian logistics ecosystems?

Logistics, at its core, is built on coordination between multiple stakeholders, but the quality of that coordination depends heavily on one underlying factor, which is trust. In India, this element is noticeably fragile. Every transaction, whether small or large, carries a degree of hesitation between the parties involved.

A shipper questions the broker, the broker questions the transporter, and even the receiver approaches the process cautiously. This creates a system where additional checks, delays, and safeguards become part of the workflow, not as exceptions but as standard practice. Over time, efficiency takes a back seat to risk management.

In contrast, systems like those in Australia operate within strong legal and enforcement frameworks where trust is institutionalised. The absence of such trust in India is not just an operational gap, it fundamentally shapes how the entire logistics ecosystem behaves and evolves.

What early challenges did you face as a young entrepreneur?

Building an early-stage company often tests not just the idea, but the ability to bring people along with it. One of the most immediate challenges was attracting the right talent into a business that was still in its formative stage. Established professionals look for stability and clarity, both of which are limited in the early days, making belief in the vision a far more important factor than any immediate incentive.

Alongside this, there was an added layer shaped by age and experience. Many of the individuals joining the organisation brought significantly more experience and were often much older, which introduced a unique dynamic between cultural respect and professional leadership. Creating an environment where communication remained open and comfortable required conscious effort.

These challenges, while not often spoken about, played a crucial role in shaping how I approached leadership, particularly in building trust within the organisation itself.

How has your vision of success evolved and where does technology fit in?

In the early stages of building any product, success is often defined by execution milestones, and for me, it initially meant getting the platform live and functional. As the journey progressed, that definition expanded into something far more meaningful and long term.

Today, success is closely tied to whether TrucksUp can become a dependable one-way load board for India, where users are able to access loads instantly and engage with a level of confidence that currently does not exist in the ecosystem. The larger objective is to address two deeply rooted challenges, which are access and trust, and to build a network where both are strengthened simultaneously.

Technology plays a critical role in enabling this, though its real value lies in application. While advancements like AI continue to evolve, their current strength lies in structuring and analysing data, with the true impact emerging when those insights translate into better decisions on the ground.

“The biggest inefficiency in logistics is not movement, it is the absence of trust and visibility.”