Case study
How Northline launched in 8 weeks
Logistics · Seed · 8 weeks
A logistics startup went from a spreadsheet workflow to a live dispatch platform in two months. Northline's pilot customers ran dispatch from a shared spreadsheet and a group chat. The founders had signed three fleets on the promise of a real product, and their seed round depended on those fleets going live before the end of the quarter.
~ The approach
Scope to one workflow. We cut the roadmap to the single loop every fleet runs daily: plan a route, assign a driver, track the stops. Everything else went on a parked list.
Design in the first week. Clickable flows were in front of dispatchers by day five, so the build started from screens real users had already tried.
Ship weekly to the pilots. Every Friday the three fleets got a new release, and their feedback shaped the next week's sprint.
What we shipped
Dispatcher web app
Plan routes, assign drivers, and watch every stop on a live map.
Driver app for iOS and Android
Turn-by-turn stop lists with proof of delivery and offline mode.
CSV import
Fleets moved drivers and stops over from spreadsheets in minutes.
SMS stop notifications
Customers get an arrival window and a live link before each stop.
Admin and billing
Per-fleet seats, usage, and invoicing without a support ticket.
Ops dashboard
On-time rate and route efficiency for every fleet, updated daily.
The results
- 8 wks
- Idea to production
- 3
- Pilot fleets live at launch
- 0
- Rewrites since launch
“We came in with a spreadsheet and a deadline. Eight weeks later our first customers were dispatching on a real product, and we never had to rebuild it.”
Lena Hart
Co-founder & CEO, Northline
Building something similar? Start a project or read how Atelier Mora closed a $2.4M round.