Aufix Fleet Management: Building a Simplified SaaS for Small Fleet Owners

Me with my friend were providing car rental for delivery guys. We had several old Hondas, which are actually one of the best options in terms of car size and fuel efficiency. It was not our main job, but we were renting these cars, repairing them, doing some operational staff, and I was in need of a simple and multiplatform solution to keep everything in one place, expenses, car statuses, receipts, reminders, etc. That was not a long story, and our small side business actually went after a few months because of lack of time for both of us, but the idea to build a modern, cost-efficient car/fleet management system was born. After research, which was actually quite poor, but it is even better :) I decided that the market is in need of one more SaaS, and fleet owners will have access to the best solution which I imagined in my head and am constantly building and improving today.

Worked, SEO + ASO (I think). I put the landing and mobile apps in the stores in 18 different languages and tested different titles and descriptions, also screens and themes. People come from Europe, US, Asia, and other countries by themselves, with no ads at all. One paying Fleet Pro customer even came from the website, and its homepage almost did not talk to businesses directly. Also, Google Play and App Store markets helped me a lot with recommendations as a new app with constant upgrades and replies to the customers in comments. Flopped, I ran Google Ads in several 2- and 3-tier markets. I got a lot of clicks and zero purchases of app subscriptions. Until now, I am not sure about the search channel which I should use more.

Hopefully I do not have a lot of complaints, and mostly it is not even complaints; people just ask for the same or new data on the computer/web version, not only on the phone. This was especially true when I was giving priority to Aufix on mobile platforms. Now I am launching features firstly in the web application, where my B2B clients sit most of the time. Basically, a lot of the features and upgrade requests are being handled as soon as possible, delivering new functionality. As I said, I use AI in analytics, coding, publishing, etc., but still, a lot of effort is needed from my side, and I have to compare and think about many things at the same time. If there is an option to reply on Play or App Store, I do so, even if it was not a 5-star review.

Everybody thinks this fleet management market is GPS trackers and big old ugly enterprise systems for 200+ trucks. That is not this market at all, because real people, individual or small- to medium-fleet owners, are like we were with those Hondas, 3-30 cars, delivery, rental, small company. They live in Excel and WhatsApp photos of receipts. They do not want a box in the car; they want to know how much the car actually costs and when the insurance ends, to avoid receiving new fines. After my poor research, I even liked that most big players ignore this, so there is space for a simple multiplatform tool which, of course, will be upgraded to handle more features, but at the same time be adaptive and customizable for different types of businesses in this niche. And what is more important, fleet management is not only about cars and trucks, it is also scooters, bikes, boats, caravans, and many more categories which Aufix perfectly supports.

Marketing, SEO, blog to our website, ads including Google, Facebook, Instagram, maybe GPT and TikTok ones also, launching on Product Hunt for the first time in my experience, more features to the web and mobile apps, growing five times in the number of unique users.

1500 unique users, the amount is constantly growing day to day.

Yes, I have an AI engineer job title with a few years of software engineering experience. Currently, I am doing a lot of things at work with AI help, but building a multiplatform app was my first experience. The especially hard part was publishing apps to Google Play and App Store. Before that, I was also working closely with Android, mainly with software and testing of apps and services. It gave me some understanding and acknowledgment. Alongside, I have a passion for the mobile world, apps, useful services - everything that makes things simpler. In my opinion, a lot of mobile apps do this.

With 100% confidence, I can say that spending time on UI/design, without implementing my own design, it is better to use something already existing because there are a lot of cool setups and design schemas I could use. Especially now, when AI can do it in one hour and I can spend more time on architecture and operations. But as a plus, it gave me more understanding of app technical capabilities, maintenance, etc. Basically, technically I became more aware.