How an On-Demand Warehousing Startup Went From Zero to a Live Two-Sided Marketplace With 200 Operators and 450+ Listed Warehouses

Without a dedicated platform, warehouse discovery and contracting happened through fragmented channels. For businesses seeking warehouse space, comparing options across services, location, and cost required manual outreach and negotiation with individual operators. For warehouse operators, managing enquiries, agreements, and invoicing without a common system meant administrative overhead that scaled with every new client relationship.

Contracting in particular was a gap. Legally binding agreements between operators and depositors had no standardised digital process, which created friction and risk on both sides of every transaction. Payments were similarly disconnected, with no single system tracking what was owed, invoiced, and settled across the platform.

Edstem built the platform in two stages.

The initial version was built on Node.js and MongoDB as a monolith, scoped to get a working product in front of beta users quickly. Based on what beta usage revealed about how larger warehouse clients needed to integrate with the platform, the architecture was revised: the frontend was rebuilt in EJS, and the backend APIs were moved to a REST-based design to support clean integration with external warehouse management systems. Backend services were containerised with Docker and orchestrated on Kubernetes using Helm. Jenkins handled the CI/CD pipeline.

Two third-party integrations did the heavy lifting on transactions and contracts. Stripe covered end-to-end payments, including both subscription-based and transaction-based models, handling invoicing and operator payouts in one system. HelloSign enabled legally binding contracts between warehouse operators and clients, removing the need for offline agreement processes.

The finished platform gives each user type a distinct experience. Warehouse operators manage their listings, capacity, and active projects. Goods depositors search available warehouses by location, services offered, and cost, and can move from search to contract to payment entirely within the platform. The admin layer gives the client full visibility across the marketplace.

The platform went from beta to production by Q1 2019. It now has 200 warehouse operators and 160 client businesses, with 450+ warehouses listed and 180+ projects actively tracked and invoiced.