How This Logistics Disruptor Built a Network of Over 1,00,000 Delivery Partners Shadowfax has grown by 3X in the last 15 months and will continue operating on very strong unit economics to pave its way forward

Blenders Pride Reserve Collection presented Entrepreneur India's 35Under35 2020 list which included some leading names from the field of entrepreneurship and Vaibhav Khandelwal and Abhishek Bansal made it to the coveted list.

The world of technology and its massive impact on the way the world operates today have always intrigued 27-year-old Vaibhav Khandelwal. Since his engineering days,he had nurtured the desire to build something innovative that will have a direct impact on the lives of people. "My eureka moment was when Abhishek shared his idea about a logistics venture to bridge the gaps that were inherent in the domain of last mile delivery," he shares.

Shadowfax is the only crowdsourced delivery network which works across all verticals including food, grocery and e-commerce deliveries on the same app. For Khandelwal, the high point of his entrepreneurial journey has been to build a network of over 1,00,000 Shadowfax delivery partners on a single platform and marking their presence in 500+ cities in India within a span of four years.

Elaborating on the issue of partner attrition in the industry, he says, "It can stress and stall the delivery network expansion and impact client deliverables. With better partner-friendly features in our Shadowfax app, we helped make the journey of every delivery partner in Shadowfax easier and more rewarding.This helped in a 2X jump in our referral numbers and retention of existing partners increased by 10 per cent."

Treading a New Path
2019 was a great year for Shadowfax in terms of executing new ideas and providing solutions to critical problems inherent in the delivery cycle."In order to ensure customer loyalty, we provided rigorous training to our delivery people on soft skills, grooming and customer service.We launched payment features to improve delivery experience, especially for COD orders," Khandelwal says.

The logistics firm also launched the Kirana Distribution Model where local stores can get onboarded on the Shadowfax Platform via the KiranaX app and deliver for Shadowfax during their free hours. This model, according to Khandelwal, helped them leverage the local knowledge of kirana stores and make faster deliveries in localities faster.

Currently operating in 500+ cities, Shadowfax looks to double this number within a couple of years reaching customers in every corner of the country. "Considering the depth and potential of the India market, we believe we can grow 10X in the next four years and take the company public," he assures.

(This article was first published in the February 2020 issue of Entrepreneur Magazine. To subscribe, click here)