How a Google Sheet and a Phone Gave Rise to a 4,000-Crore Business

Without this business, there would’ve been chaos.

A Google Sheet and a phone brought up a company that generated a 4,000-crore revenue as of 2025. Let us see about this in “Terrible Turnaround.”

First of all, we need to understand what intracity logistics is — moving goods within the same city for businesses or regular customers.

Without this business that solved a very complex problem using an Uber-like idea, there would’ve been chaos. The company is PORTER, a tech-enabled logistics marketplace focused on intra-city and intercity goods movement using an app similar to Uber — one that solved many problems like waiting time for both consumers and drivers, difficulty in finding cabs, and opaque pricing.

India’s logistics market was unorganised, spending about 14% of its GDP on logistics. Logistics efficiency directly affects how productive an economy is: cheaper and faster movement of goods means higher overall productivity.

When the founders discovered this pain point in the logistics market, they brought up a solution using the trucks and LCV vehicles they noticed while returning home after work. They went and talked to those drivers and were shocked to know that it was hard to get even one ride a day. On the consumer side, they found that people were struggling with finding vehicles, high prices, poor tracking, and delayed deliveries.

Initially, they used just a Google Sheet and a phone. With the help of truck/LCV drivers and a pitch of being about 20% cheaper, they quickly attracted 500+ business customers, ~3,000 monthly bookings, and strong early revenue.

They then built an app with GPS tracking, real-time status, driver reassignment, and per-minute loading/unloading charges to enforce punctuality and efficiency on both sides. As a result, ride counts increased from 1–2 per day to 4–5 per day.

As the famous quote goes, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Every one of us has felt this — after we rise, we fall, and a greater comeback waits. We sacrifice many things in that process. Porter is no exception. As they grew, new challenges came up. Overexpansion into intercity logistics during the 2015 funding boom backfired; Porter had to shut that vertical, lay off ~50 people, and refocus on fixing its core intracity model and service quality.

Did they do something new? Yes — but weird too. They charged both consumers and truck drivers for delaying loading, and they kept backup drivers. This made on-time deliveries possible. It improved reliability, raised driver earnings by around 20–30% by finding goods for return trips so vehicles didn’t drive back empty, and lowered costs for customers.

This efficiency and service quality helped Porter attract a strategic merger and a $10M investment from Mahindra’s SmartShift, beat Dunzo in two-wheeler deliveries in Bengaluru, and expand to 20+ cities with an FY23 revenue of about ₹1,750 crore and a 4.8 Play Store rating from 650k+ users.

Hope this shows you that falling down from a higher level doesn’t mean there are no options — it gives many new ideas.

This is day 01/30 days challenge. And I forgot to add: after fixing the intercity mess, they reopened their intracity services and started shining again.