The Hidden Key to Growth: The Power of Strong Partnerships

When you’re building something new in an industry full of established giants, the partnerships you choose can be the catalyst that takes your business from a bold idea to real momentum.

At HIVED, we set out to reimagine parcel delivery — an industry not known for innovation or sustainability — and provide a service that is reliably better and refreshingly different for retail brands and their customers.

But building better is only half the story; scaling better takes partnership. From the beginning, we’ve known we couldn’t go it alone. In the early days of any startup when first breaking into a legacy industry, you’re asking customers and suppliers to take a bet on you over the status quo. 

That’s why earning trust through joint ventures — and working with customers as partners rather than pure transactions — is essential. Not just for credibility, but for momentum, also.

Choose partners who see your value

Retailers today don’t just compete on product, they compete on customer experience. From the first website click, to the moment a parcel lands on someone’s doorstep, every touchpoint matters. Yet, for years, delivery has been the part retailers have had the least control over.

We’ve flipped that on its head. We believe delivery should enhance customer experience, not undermine it. That’s why we’ve built our service around speed, reliability, and transparency. 

Fewer missed deliveries means fewer WISMO (“Where is my order?”) contacts, lower operational costs, and fewer refund requests. Faster, clearer communication builds trust with customers. And for our partners, that translates directly to better NPS, stronger retention, and a brand experience they can be proud of at every stage of the customer journey.

Retailers who care deeply about how their brand is perceived recognise this instantly. They’re not just looking for a logistics provider; they’re looking for a partner who sees the end customer the same way they do. For them, HIVED isn’t a line item, it’s an extension of their brand.

Those are the partners we want to work with. Because when customer experience is the shared priority, that’s when real long-term value is created on both sides.

Partnerships create leverage

As a startup, you’re often outmatched on resources. Your competitors have more people, more brand awareness, more history. 

What you do have is the ability to move quickly, and with the right partners, you can unlock scale that wouldn’t be possible alone.

Our best partnerships have been with forward-thinking brands who wanted more than just another delivery provider. They wanted a partner to collaborate with, solve problems alongside, and push boundaries. 

Whether it’s helping retailers expand their service offering or developing new customer delivery features, our strongest growth has come from working hand-in-hand with partners who want to build the future, not replicate the past.

The partnership mindset starts inside your company

It’s not just about who you work with externally. Internally, we’ve focused on building a work culture of collaboration between departments, with advisors, and across our growing team. 

We’ve brought in experts from the logistics world to complement our startup mindset. That mix of industry knowledge and fresh thinking has helped us punch above our weight.

Strong partnerships, inside and out, give you more than just reach, they give you resilience. They help you weather setbacks, spot new opportunities, and move faster than the incumbents who’ve gotten too comfortable.

So many startups burn bright and fast today. But the ones that scale sustainably are the ones that build real relationships — with customers, with suppliers, and with their team.

If we’ve learned anything in our growth journey to date at HIVED, it’s to make these partnerships count. If you want to go far, go together.