May 2023: When Growth Slowed, We Focused on Trust in Logistics

May 2023 | When Growth Slowed, We Started Building Trust

By May 2023, things were not moving the way we had expected.

After multiple waves of COVID and the gradual recovery, the logistics ecosystem had stabilized to some extent, but it was still far from predictable. Demand was inconsistent, pricing pressure was high, and most businesses were still operating cautiously.

For us, this phase felt different.

No big deals were closing.
No major announcements.
No breakthrough growth curve.

On the surface, it looked like a slow phase.

But internally, a lot was happening.

The Pressure of a Slow Phase

In startups, slow phases are often more difficult than crisis phases.

During a crisis, you react.
During a slow phase, you overthink.

Questions start coming from every direction:

• What are we missing?
• Why is growth not picking up?
• Should we change direction?
• Are we building the right thing?

The team also feels it.

There is effort. There is intent.
But outcomes are not visible immediately.

And as a founder, you carry two responsibilities at once:

• Keep the business moving
• Keep the team motivated

The Realization from April

At the same time, what we had observed in April around frauds and misuse in the ecosystem was still very fresh.

Fake transporters.
Manipulated deals.
FASTag misuse.
Lack of accountability.

These were not one-off issues.

They were signals.

Signals that the ecosystem had gaps.
And if not addressed, these gaps would only grow bigger with digitization.

Shift in Thinking: From Growth to Trust

This is where a key shift happened.

Instead of asking:
“How do we grow faster?”

We started asking:
“How do we make the system more trustworthy?”

Because growth without trust is temporary.

And in logistics, where transactions are high value and relationships matter, trust is everything.

Building the Verification Mindset

One of the first internal changes was simple, but powerful:

👉 Not every user should be treated the same.

Till now, most digital platforms, including ours, focused on onboarding more users, more transporters, more connections.

But we started questioning this.

• Who is genuine?
• Who is verified?
• Who can be trusted for high-value transactions?

This led to the beginning of a verification-first mindset.

Not just onboarding.
But validating.

Cleaning the Network

Growth often pushes platforms to expand fast.

But scale without control creates noise.

So we started thinking about:

• Identifying unreliable players
• Reducing exposure to suspicious activities
• Strengthening quality within the network

This was not an easy decision.

Because cleaning the network sometimes means:

• Slowing down growth
• Saying no to certain opportunities
• Losing short-term revenue

Trust vs Growth: The Hard Tradeoff

This phase made one thing very clear:

👉 You cannot optimize for trust and unchecked growth at the same time.

At least not in the early stages.

We had to choose.

And we chose to lean towards:
Quality over quantity

Because:

• One bad transaction damages multiple relationships
• One fraud breaks confidence in the entire platform
• One wrong user can impact many genuine users

What Was Happening Internally

While externally it looked like a slow month, internally:

• Discussions were getting deeper
• Problems were being understood at root level
• Long-term systems were being thought through

This was less about execution, more about direction-setting.

Also Read:- April 2023 | Digital Needs Discipline

Startup Lesson from This Phase

1. Slow phases are not empty phases
   They are thinking phases
2. Not every problem needs immediate execution
   Some need clarity first
3. Growth can hide deeper issues
   Slowdowns expose them
4. Your platform is only as strong as the people on it
5. Trust is not a feature, it’s a foundation

Looking Ahead

May 2023 did not give us big numbers.
It did not give us big wins.

But it gave us something more important:

👉 A shift in mindset
👉 A new direction
👉 And the foundation for building a more reliable ecosystem

Because sometimes, the most important work in a startup is the one that no one sees immediately.