In our blog, we've shared several use cases that showcase the versatility of our platform across various industries – each with its unique set of trackers, internal logic, and approach to data transmission, processing, and storage. Many of our projects come from well-established companies that have been in their respective industries for years. At one point, we began to ask ourselves: just how far can flespi go? Could its capabilities extend beyond what we’ve already seen?
This question led us to organize a hackathon – a brainstorming session to explore ideas that could leverage flespi’s architecture. Participants were given only two days to come up with an MVP. But what if we gave you more time?..
This post is different. Instead of showcasing a long-running project on flespi, we’re sharing what it’s like to build a platform from scratch – starting with just a business idea and sheer persistence. A lot of persistence.
This is the story of Telematics inSights – a platform that went from concept to commercial launch in just nine months. We reached out to the CEO and founder of the project, Sergei Leuchanka, with a few questions. After all, who better to tell the story than the man behind those endless nights spent in our chat? :)
How did you come up with the idea for the product and the company?
"About 12 months ago, I put together a small team to build a white-label telematics platform focused on video. I’ve been in the industry for over 10 years and have seen video evolve from a niche add-on to a mainstream feature. Although most key players have incorporated video, it’s often not user-friendly or well-integrated with other fleet management capabilities. Usually, it’s just slapped on top of existing functionality. I really felt there was a need for a solution that combines compelling video features with competitive fleet management, and that’s exactly what we’re aiming to provide."
Why did you pick flespi for the product?
"Honestly, if flespi didn’t exist, I wouldn’t have started this project. As a non-technical founder, building a telematics platform from scratch felt overwhelming. I’ve seen Telematics Service Provider companies (TSPs) start with off-the-shelf platforms (like Wialon, Navixy, or GPS Gate), grow to a certain size, and then try to build their own to save costs. Often, things go fine up to a few thousand devices – but then the architecture fails to scale, and it all unravels.
The beauty of flespi is that it’s a telematics back-end built for scale. Using it as our foundation drastically reduces the complexity of building a telematics solution from the ground up. When flespi added video support in the summer of 2023, that was my light-bulb moment. About eight months later, Telematics inSights was incorporated, and the business was born."
What was the beginning of the project like?
"As a non-technical founder, I didn’t start with coding. Instead, I spent countless days and nights creating a comprehensive “Vision Document,” which ended up being almost 50 pages long. My first hire was a designer because I wanted a high-fidelity, clickable prototype to validate with trusted contacts in the industry. We refined that prototype based on feedback before writing a single line of code. I also made a point of hiring a UI/UX designer who had no prior telematics experience – to bring fresh, innovative ideas to the table.
Once we felt confident in our direction, development began. Our CTO, Dima Kolodko, quickly set up the initial architecture in AWS to integrate with flespi. We also brought in Hanna Shauchanok, who has extensive experience with flespi, to help define the best architectural approaches. Amazingly, it took our team only about a month to build the alpha version with basic fleet management features, thanks to flespi’s advanced capabilities – everything from plugins and webhooks to calculators (flespi analytics)."
So, how did it take you to get to the commercial launch - another month or two?
"That’s what it felt like at first, given how fast we got the alpha out. (Laughs) But reality was more challenging. Our administrative interface was the next big hurdle, and building that took over two months.
The biggest challenge was building our video interface – video requests handling, live streaming, and playback – all tightly integrated with real-time fleet management, alerts, and reports. I spent many dozens of hours working in Figma with our designer, experimenting with various concepts and refining the approach.
Our lead engineer, Max Proshkin, did an incredible job building the core video capabilities in about two months. I’m extremely proud of how the video functionality turned out – it’s become a truly standout feature of the platform that aligns perfectly with my initial vision."
What are the biggest challenges you’ve worked through or are working through now?
"The biggest headache has been the video telematics hardware itself. Even though flespi does a great job unifying data and simplifying device interactions, we still encounter quirks and unexpected issues – both with the devices and the data they generate. We’re in close contact with the supported video hardware manufacturers to address these challenges. Sometimes it’s a device firmware issue; other times it’s something in flespi’s processing, or a tweak we need to make on the Telematics inSights side.
I have to say, flespi’s support has been outstanding – both the human support team and the AI assistant, сodi. Recently, I asked him a question about intervals formed by flespi calculators, and the depth and speed of the response were mind-blowing. It even remembered the history of our previous interactions, giving me contextually rich answers. That ongoing accumulated context is incredibly valuable."
At what stage are you now, and what are your plans for the future?
"We released our first commercial tier, Standard inSights, in early February. It combines solid video capabilities with basic fleet management. We already have nine paying customers and are in discussions with dozens more who are testing the platform.
Although our direct customers are Telematics Service Providers, the end-user fleets we are catering to are small and mid-sized businesses. We’re being careful not to overload the platform with features. We want a clean interface and a straightforward user experience – intuitive design is our top priority.
We’re really just at the start of our journey. Our next milestone is launching the Advanced inSights tier, which will include driver as an entity, a driver native mobile app, dashboards, and new reports. After that comes the “Premium” functionality with Dispatch and Maintenance features.
Our roadmap is packed, and we’re excited to keep building on flespi’s platform and onboarding more TSPs."
Thanks, Sergei – and best of luck to Telematics inSights! We’ll be following your journey. :)