Rajat Jain, Co-founder of Pataa

In the times like now, when we are all so dependent on technology, many tech startups are setting their feet firm on the ground to make a way for new advancements and the convenience they add to our lives. To know more about such technologies and how they help us, CXOToday got in touch with Mr Rajat Jain, Co-Founder, Pataa Navigations Pvt Ltd. In a very engaging discussion about the tech company and what it does, Mr Rajat shares how this world is witnessing a technology boom today and how India is also participating in this digital movement. To know more, read on.

1. Since tech startups are at a boom in today’s time, how did you find your niche?

I agree. Tech startups are at an all-time high post-covid, but it is my forward-looking mindset of finding solutions to everyday issues, that helped me find my niche.

We identified this problem of unstructured and unnamed addresses during our travels when it was difficult for us to locate and share addresses. Apart from this, we also observed that most people find it very frustrating when they need to explain an address over and over again to a visitor or delivery guy. Finding a global solution to this day-to-day problem, my brother Mohit and I built a team of software engineers and intellectuals who’ve created this amazing app.

2. How well do you think Indians are equipped with technology?

As you said, we’re in an era of tech boom today and lots of Indians are turning to technology for their personal and professional requirements. There’s fintech, edu-tech, social media, chat rooms, data, analytics, cloud, etc. which Indians use on a regular basis. According to McKinsey Global, India had 560 million internet subscribers in September 2018, second only to China. Digital services are growing in parallel as Indians downloaded more apps, 12.3 billion in 2018 than any country except China.

Still, there’s room for more. Features like geotagging for addresses, better navigation, and doorstep deliveries on exact locations are yet to be tapped. I believe that availing the technology that caters to these issues is the need of the hour.

3.What are the factors that influence the consumption of your product / services? What can you do to change them in your favor?

We’d like our users to make full use of our features while sharing their addresses with delivery staff and visitors. Some of our features like extension and enabling or disabling of routes are extremely useful but not everyone wants to explore them. We’re trying our best to educate users through videos, e-mailers, and social media posts about all our features so that people can derive maximum benefit from them.

The good news is, that Pataa streamlines the purchasing process so that a person may complete an online transaction by simply entering the Pataa code, lowering the churn rate by enabling the client to easily complete the transaction without the burden of writing down a detailed address, resulting in a smoother and faster purchase. These variables all work in our favor, creating a high demand for our services.

4. Since drone technology is at its boom, what are the top two advantages of introducing it in India?

New aerial technologies like drone deliveries are set to play a major role in an economy like India, I can foresee major advantages:

• It will reduce the last mile cost of deliveries which costs companies 30% of the total cost incurred in delivering packages.
• It will also deliver to the exact coordinates picked up by the drone and save precious time and money.

5. Being a tech firm, what are the top 2 advantages and challenges for you?

The top two advantages for us are:

• Most people have smartphones today and communicate through them for shopping, etc. That makes the customer easily accessible to us to download the Pataa app.
• Similarly, we help people overcome the hassle of explaining their address again and again. The solutions we offer through our features are our biggest advantage.
• One of our challenges is that behavioral changes regarding our various use cases will take time to set in. It isn’t easy to adapt to change but we’re trying our best to get customers used to Pataa.
• Another challenge is the vastness of rural India, where we see a tremendous opportunity. We want to connect people living in villages with mainstream commerce, banking etc. by improving their reach with Pataa. To get them to avail all these opportunities needs a lot of rural infiltration. So, while we have more than 7.5 million downloads, we’re trying our best to be of help to people residing in far-flung villages who live on unnamed streets and have no connectivity with E-Commerce deliveries. For us, Pataa means giving an identity to everyone.

6. What is the difference between navigation and address finding? Why are you focused on addressing issues?

While navigation monitors and controls the movement of a vehicle from one coordinate to the other, address finding goes beyond that. Most navigation apps use satellite data or data available from maps. The Pataa app is the only app that solves the problem of long and complex addresses, through data that is actually fed by the target audience / user himself, because no one else can describe the best route to their homes than the users themselves.

Like I said earlier, this is an area that needs immediate concern. India suffers an annual loss of more than 75,000 crore rupees because of its complex addressing system. This amounts to 0.5% of our total GDP. Considering the huge amount of loss as well as last mile cost issues with logistics etc. our focus is on addressing issues.

7. What are the top 3 trends in your industry in 2022? How are you keeping up with them?

Digital addresses are being incorporated into automobiles, drones, websites etc.

We’re the trendsetters in the field of address API which aims to reduce customer churn and facilitate direct E-Commerce deliveries.

Pataa is also the only addressing language that drones can pick up for deliveries to the right latitude-longitude. Pataa is pioneering the address revolution via drones by providing lat-long coordinates through digital addresses.

Automobile navigation is not a nascent trend. It’s been around for a while now. We’re different from other service providers in this segment as we provide voice directions in our app which provides hands-free hearing to reach the exact pinpointed location of an address.

Furthermore, Pataa has divided the entire globe into 53 trillion blocks of 3 * 3 sq. mts called square codes which can be accessed by automobile drivers anywhere.

Pataa is gearing up with groundbreaking technology, leveraging digital addresses in multiple B2B, B2C, and B2G segments while improving logistics operations and outreach.